Fledgling

by Sharon

  "I'm not a kid," she said impatiently. "And the Simple was just reading the IDs out of her 'book. What I can't figure out is why she didn't realize you were carrying two mumus."

  "But, you see," Father murmured, "the ID emitter on my mumu is . . . turned off."

  Theo blinked.

  "They turn off?"

  He sighed. "Mind you, I don't say it's easy. Is this our stop?"

  "Yes," Theo said, as the belt slowed. She swung off, Father at her side. "Would you have . . . hurt . . . that Simple, really? If she hadn't stopped."

  He looked down at her. "Yes," he said seriously. "I would have hurt her, really. Liad, I fear, is a barbarous place, where people defend their honor and those who fall within it by any means, including physical force. Even having been so long embraced by the enlightened customs of Delgado, I find that I cannot wholly put these violent tendencies behind me." He lifted an eyebrow.

  "You have now been fairly warned. Do you wish to run away?"

  "From you?" Theo shook her head. "Don't be a nidj, Father."

  He cleared his throat. "I will," he said, so solemnly she knew that he was trying not to laugh. "Do my best not to be a nidj, Theo."

  He turned to survey the row of almost-identical beige doors set in at identical intervals into the white wall.

  "Now, here's a pleasing aspect. Which door is yours?"

  "Right the—" Her mumu warmed in her hands, and she glanced down, touching the screen. "I've got a text from Kamele," she said, and felt the full weight of his attention fall on her.

  "Do you, indeed? Does she wonder when I'll bestir myself to return you?"

  "No-oo . . ." Theo read the text again. Short as it was, it seemed . . . much less calm than Kamele's usual messages. She looked up into Father's black eyes. "She says she has a very important meeting that can't be put off. I'm to stay in, lock the door and not answer, if someone should ring."

  "Perhaps she has received news of the Chapelia's interest," he murmured.

  "Looks like," Theo agreed, chewing her lip and glancing down to read the message a third time. Would it be so bad, she wondered irritably, for Kamele to part with a little information now and then?

  "Why?" she asked suddenly, looking up. "Why did the Chapelia have my name in their book?"

  Both eyebrows rose. "Theo, you astonish me."

  "No, I don't," she said shortly. "You and Kamele are always telling me to question things."

  "Indeed, but the quality of the question must also count for something—and of late yours have become . . . most interesting. So. Shall you let me in and show me this rug Gorna Dail has sold you?"

  She considered him warily. "I'd like that. It's pretty late, though, and if you're going to have to go all the way around to the East Door . . ."

  "It's scarcely late at all," he interrupted, and of a sudden gave her a smile. "I see I am found out. If you must have it, I crave a moment of Coyster's attention."

  "Oh!" Of course he wants to visit with Coyster, she thought, turning toward the door; he was used to having the younger cat underfoot. And her, too. And Kamele.

  "Is it . . . very lonely . . . with just you and Mandrin?" she asked, putting her hand against the plate.

  "It is . . . quiet," he allowed, following her into the apartment. He glanced around the little hall while Theo locked the door. When she turned back, he was looking down at Kamele's rug.

  "I think she meant it to . . . cheer the room up," Theo said awkwardly, unable to read the expression on his face.

  "I'm certain that she did," he answered, his eyes still downcast. "Well." He swept a hand out, inviting her to lead on, and followed her down the hall.

  "This is very pleasant," he said a few moments later as they sat together on the blue-and-green rug. Coyster was on his back between them, paws waving in ecstasy as Father tickled his belly. "Ms. Dail has done well by you."

  "I hope so," Theo said, running her hand over the nap and watching the fascinating, waterlike flow from green to blue. "Do you know how to—to dicker?"

  Grinning, he gave Coyster a final chuck under the chin. "In fact, I do. However, I believe that your mother would not thank me for introducing you to the art at this point in your education. First, master consensus and teamwork, then apply to me again."

  She grinned. "Done!"

  He laughed. "I see that you came away not entirely unmarked." He sobered. "It is, as you mentioned, quite late. Perhaps even late enough for a young student who has had a remarkably adventurous few days to seek some well-deserved rest."

  "I'm . . ." Theo hesitated. She was sleepy. A little. But—

  "I think you ought to stay here," she said, "until that Simple forgets about you. They probably put somebody on the East Door, too, you know . . ."

  Father tipped his head, his face serious, though she could see the smile in his eyes.

  "Well, lacking appropriate encouragement, she's not likely to forget about me; nor are they likely to have forgotten the East Door. Which is to say that I agree with you. I should, indeed, stay here for a time. Thank you."

  Theo considered him doubtfully. She could usually tell when Father was joking. "I—"

  He raised a hand. "No, Theo. I am quite serious. Thank you for your care." He rolled to his feet and extended a hand to help her up.

  "So," he said, smiling fully now. "Shall we say next Oktavi, same time?"

  "Yes . . ." She blinked and cleared her throat. "Yes!"

  "Good." He touched her cheek, his fingers warm, then ruffled her hair like she was a kid. "Sleep well, child."

  Fourteen

  History of Education Department

  Oriel College of Humanities

  University of Delgado

  The coffee in the research room was fresh-brewed. Kamele sipped hers and sighed aloud. Someone on the forensic team had her priorities straight.

  Unfortunately, the pleasure of real coffee was negated by the methodical unveiling of data in the Group Space at the center of the table.

  "As you can see," Professor Crowley murmured, tapping the light keys, "we have located no further discrepancies between Professor Flandin's publications and the material she cites. Everything, in fact, checks perfectly, and the committee had all but achieved a consensus accepting that those two . . . erroneous citations which resulted in the professor's loss of tenure were the only two incidents in existence."

  Kamele sighed quietly, sipped coffee and recruited herself to patience. To judge from the patient expressions of his two team members, Professor Crowley was one who must tell the thing in whole and in order. And who for all of that, she thought, would not have insisted on a meeting right now only to say that the committee had found that there was nothing to find.

  "In fact," Crowley continued, "the committee was well on its way to declaring that there was nothing else to find. It was only . . ."

  "It was only," Professor Emeritus Beltaire spoke up from her seat at the far end of the table, "my own vanity, colleagues, that led us to explore what at first appeared to be the most minor portion of Professor Flandin's work: an encyclopedia entry on the subject of Vazinty pelinTrayle."

  "The Saint of Panvine?" Ella sounded startled, as well, Kamele thought, she should. The Saint had been . . . opposed to the diversity of thought which the University of Delgado—for instance—held to be the treasure of higher learning.

  To put it mildly.

  "The so-called Saint," Professor Beltaire said dryly. "As it happens, my family holds the dubious honor of having once been enclosed by the pelinTrayle phulon. When the Beltaire patriarch embraced schism as preferable to genocide, he wisely brought away such papers, documents, and primary sources as he could lay hand to—for protection, you understand, should he need to place his jenos under a patron strong enough to withstand what blandishments Vazinty might make." She smiled.

  "As it happens, Vazinty shortly had many more problems to deal with than the repatriation of an errant jenos. Beltaire settled upon Melchiza and eventually the origin
al papers passed into the House of Planetary Treasures there." She paused to sip coffee. "Before surrendering them, the patriarch of course made copies, which the jenos retained, as part of our private archives. Eventually, the patriarch's great-granddaughter, who naturally had access to the history of the jenos, became, more by accident than design, an expert on Vazinty pelinTrayle."

  She raised her cup again. Professor Crowley folded his hands, his eyes dreaming on the cluttered Group Space.

  "So," Kamele said to Professor Beltaire, "you were uniquely placed to recognize an error in the relevant citation."

  The elder scholar nodded. "Indeed I was, and I flagged the passage. Imagine my . . . surprise . . . when Professor Able—" she nodded at the last member of the committee, who appeared to be napping with her eyes open—"told me that the cite matched . . . precisely."

  Kamele put her cup on the table.

  "An error of memory, perhaps?" Ella murmured. "Even an expert is sometimes mistaken."

  "My precise thought was something less gentle regarding the memories of old women, but—yes," Professor Beltaire said. "Cursing my failing faculties, I checked my hard copies . . ."

  "She can't have altered the source documents!" Kamele protested. "That would have required an archivist's key." Or an archivist, brought in on the plan, and if that were the case—Kamele shivered.

  "But she did just that," Professor Able said, apparently not napping, after all. "I have no idea how she did it, but I went through those documents line by line, comparing every word, and—the library sources have been altered. Only a bit, mind! Nothing more than a few words; sometimes only a point of punctuation."

  "Nothing important," Professor Crowley said, leaning back in his chair, and looking 'round the table at them. "Taken in isolation."

  "In sum, however," Professor Beltaire murmured, "these . . . corrections . . . draw a portrait of Delgado and Panvine standing . . . much closer together, philosophically, than we know to be the case, and, indeed, suggests that the current head of the Panvinian Administration is an adviser to the Delgado Board of Trustees."

  "What?" Kamele looked at Ella, discovering an expression of bewildered outrage on her face that was probably, Kamele thought, a mirror of her own. She leaned forward, pressing her palms against the cool surface of the table as she ordered her thoughts.

  "What I hear the committee say is that there is strong evidence that a . . . series? of source documents have been tampered with. Leaving aside for the moment the how, I would ask why."

  Professor Able shook her head. "Flandin is the person to give the definitive answer to that. Unfortunately, we let her go."

  "Though compelling, why does not fall within the scope of this committee's work," Professor Crowley added. "We were charged to survey the literature in order to ascertain if other . . . scholarly transgressions had been made which might damage the university. Evidence of such tampering has, alas, been discovered."

  Professor Beltaire shook her head. "With all respect due to my honored colleague, I must disagree. What this committee has discovered is a discrepancy between the documents maintained by the research library and the documents held in private by an acknowledged expert. It is worth noting, colleagues, that both sets of documents are—copies."

  "Certified copies!" Able corrected.

  "As you say. But copies nonetheless. There is room for doubt. The copies are demonstrably not identical. What we cannot demonstrate from where we sit is—which set has been altered."

  There was silence in the research room. Kamele closed her eyes, but she still felt the weight of her colleagues' regard. She was sub-chair; this investigation was her responsibility, begun for the best and most noble of reasons. The reasons for carrying through had just become . . . an imperative. If a whisper that Delgado's most closely held records had been altered escaped into the academic universe . . .

  "I understand and value your argument," she said slowly, opening her eyes. She let her gaze go round the table, touching the face of each in turn: Beltaire grimly amused, Able only grim; Crowley resigned; Ella plainly horrified.

  "I would be interested in hearing the committee's suggestions for a . . . quick and quiet resolution of this situation."

  "Quiet will be difficult," Able said, "but I don't despair of finding the proper public relations angle."

  "There must be an absolute determination made first," Crowley said sourly. "The copies must be compared to the originals."

  "I agree," Beltaire said crisply. "If it is found that Delgado's copies have been compromised, then it is time for public relations to bake us an airy confection, and for the university to purchase a comprehensive doc-check of its archival material."

  Kamele's stomach sank. The cost! And yet, the cost—if students stopped coming to the University of Delgado, if the results and facts reported by Delgadan scholars were automatically assumed by their colleagues elsewhere to be erroneous . . .

  "Where are the original documents?" she asked Beltaire.

  The old woman smiled. "Why, they are still safely locked up in the treasure house on my homeworld, Professor Waitley. Melchiza."

  * * *

  She is not ready!

  Horror—hers, though it scarcely mattered—flooded him. He closed his eyes and spun a Rainbow; the very first thing taught to hopeful scoutlings, and perhaps the most useful. Together, he and Aelliana relaxed inside the benevolent colors.

  "Tell me," he murmured, when his heartbeat had steadied; "upon what day and hour did I become a monster?"

  If her Gigneri is brought forward . . .

  ". . . which we will only suggest if it transpires that I have accurately recalled a particular bit of trivia I read years ago while in pursuit of something else entirely. It could be that I am mistaken; and in any case, the final word rests with Kamele—in whom I believe you repose complete confidence?"

  I repose complete confidence in no one, Aelliana stated with an airy bravado that almost had him laughing aloud.

  "That is, of course, very wise," he murmured, quellingly. "Now. If I might have a moment's peace in which to pursue my research?"

  Certainly, his lifemate replied, and faded from his awareness.

  * * *

  She had the entirety of the committee's notes, recommendations and matches in her 'book. She had Ella's promise to get Hafley, the forensic team, and the Dean of Faculty into the same room tomorrow, utilizing whatever means seemed good to her. She had a hastily downloaded schedule of the current Quester's Fees, and the location of the nearest Simple Circle.

  She also had a bottle of deplorable wine from the Quad Eight all-nighter, with which she hoped to counteract the jitters bestowed by adrenaline and too many late-night cups of coffee.

  Her hair was wisping into her eyes. She shook her head, which of course only resulted in bringing the rest of it down. Well, the door to the apartment was scarcely six steps away. She'd be inside before she frightened the neighbors.

  The at-home light was dark. Kamele blinked, her heart suddenly in her mouth.

  Theo wasn't home yet? Surely Jen Sar wouldn't have kept her this late! What—

  She slapped the lock without any memory of having crossed the intervening distance. The door opened, she swept inside—and stopped so suddenly her shoes squeaked against the floor.

  Jen Sar looked up from his mumu. A smile glinted in the depths of his dark eyes, though his sharp-featured face was grave.

  "Good evening, Kamele. Theo asked me to stay."

  She let her breath out all at once, and raised her free hand to shove her hair out of her eyes. "She's home, then. The door—"

  "Forgive me. I felt it reasonable, in light of . . . certain events . . . that the door be persuaded to something less than complete candor," he said. Despite the rote "forgive me" he was as unapologetic as always for his tampering. "I'll put it right before I leave, if you wish."

  "I don't know," she said shortly, and sighed, suddenly feeling all the hours of her day. "Jen Sar. We have to
talk."

  "Indeed we do." He rose, neat and supple, his grace making her feel even more disheveled and grimy.

  "Come now," he said snatching the thought out of her head as he so often seemed to do, "I've had an hour to sit and recoup my strength after an evening with your daughter, while you are obviously new-come from some chancy venture." He tipped his head slightly. "Shall I pour wine while you refresh yourself? My topic will wait, if yours will."

  A shower, her robe, and, after, wine in the garden with the stars spread above like some fantastical tapestry—Kamele spared a sigh for the impossible, and handed him the bottle.

  "That is, hands down, the best thing anyone has said to me today."

  His eyebrows rose as he took the bottle and walked with her toward the dining alcove.

  "A chancy venture, indeed," he murmured, so seriously that she had to laugh, though it sounded a little high in her own ears.

  "I'll be out soon," she said, dropping her 'book on the counter.

  Jen Sar moved his shoulders. "You needn't rush on my account. I'll sit here quietly and plan my retreat."

  That brought her around to frown at him.

  "Jen Sar?"

  He glanced up from his perusal of the wine label, face attentive. "Yes?"

  "Why," Kamele asked, "did you gimmick the door?"

  "Ah. Because the Chapelia have Theo's name and I couldn't be certain that they would not come here, since we had thwarted them at the gate. While your instruction that Theo not answer the door was sage, I felt it would be far less fatiguing for all if the door merely . . . discouraged visitors."

  Kamele felt her shoulders sag. "I didn't expect them to be that—wait!" She reviewed their conversation thus far, and unhappily concluded that at no time had he said that her daughter was home. It was important, when speaking with Jen Sar, to keep track of those things that had not been said, as well as those which had. In fifteen years, she had acquired some facility, but tonight she was so tired . . .

  "Where," she asked firmly, "is Theo?"

  He sighed, deeply. "It is my fate to be found an abuser of youth."

  Kamele took a breath. "Does that mean she's with some Simple, being—"