Constellation

by Sharon Lee

  “Indeed,” he agreed, giving her the fuller bow she had earned. “Like yourself, I assume.”

  She smiled slightly. “Yes, but not for your boss, I assure you.”

  “I thought it best to bring you together,” the scout suggested firmly before either raised the conversational stakes again, “so that we might all gain advantage from an awkward situation. The commander is bringing her forces into the fray on the side of the Chilongan government. She is in need of accurate weather prediction—and is willing to supply someone to carry special equipment and give reports.”

  “Special equipment? I have no equipment to loan—” began Brunner—but stopped at Jack’s low-key hand-motion.

  Six paces to the big man’s right, a backpack stood on its rack. A red-headed Liaden youth—as much of an oddity on the station as Brunner himself—in combat dress was examining the pack minutely.

  “Tech Brunner,” the scout said. “From your training, you will of course be familiar with the commercial version of this Stubbs MicroRanger.” He used his chin to point at the backpack. “The scouts will supply this unit on loan to the station, if, in your professional opinion, it will be useful to your work. The station may then lend-lease the unit to Klamath—or to someone representing the legitimate government of Klamath. There is . . . melant’i at work . . . in that direction.”

  Brunner eyed the offered weather machine. The red-headed soldier was bent close, hands prudently behind her back, winged brows pulled together into a frown. “This is no commercial unit, Scout.”

  “Indeed. In comparison to the commercial Stubbs . . . This one is quite a bit more powerful, and has some additional useful features—we will of course supply the manual. Among the upgrades is the ability to transmit very long distances. It may also be set to do precision positioning and multiremote queries on its own and to act as relay. Is this capability worth the risk to equipment which costs on the order of a dozen cantra to put in place?”

  “Worth how much? Maybelle’s beard! And I’m supposed to just lug this around in an active zone?”

  Startled, Brunner looked back to the apparent halfling who’d been studying the Stubbs.

  As Liaden as she appeared, the language she spoke was Terran and the accent was—backworld, at best.

  “That’s not your problem—” began the commander but the halfling rushed on.

  “Liz, this thing could buy Surebleak with change left over, couldn’t it? Didn’t you say you can buy a ship for—”

  The scout laughed out loud, and cocked an eyebrow at the tall Terran at his side.

  “I see you have found us willing transport, Commander.”

  She snorted, made a vague waving motion toward the young soldier.

  “Put it on, then we’ll see if you’ve got a worry, right, Corporal?”

  The soldier’s face was very unLiaden in its mobility and willingness to display emotion. The expression of the moment, if Brunner read it right, was a cross between disdain and awe.

  “That an order?” she asked warily. “I can’t much afford to pay this back if I drop it wrong—”

  “Order,” confirmed the commander, though not as sharply as she might have done. “Now, Redhead.”

  “Yes’m.” The soldier bent to the pack.

  “The question remains, Tech.” The scout’s voice drew Brunner’s attention. “Is it worth the risk to the equipment to have the corporal carry it in what she properly names an active zone?”

  Brunner sighed, shoulders rising in one of the all-encompassing shrugs that formed a great part of station lingua.

  “You wish to argue philosophy, Scout? Equipment is to be used in the pursuit of information. This station exists to gather what information we can regarding the unique events upon the planet’s surface.”

  Jack snorted. “See, I told you! Sure he wants the Stubbs on-world. You want the Stubbs on-world. The commander here, she wants the Stubbs on-world—”

  “Hey, it ain’t that heavy, really, is it?”

  The discussion stopped as all eyes focused on the corporal and her burden. She stood as tall as she could, which was not very, and extremely straight, which was . . . admirable, given what she was wearing on her back. The unit’s stand was still deployed, and she casually flipped a trip-switch on her left side, retracting it. Reaching to another switch, she said, “This one, right? The antenna?”

  The scout nodded. “But not here. The unit will begin transmitting on antenna deployment and I suspect it would give a jolt to the local receivers at this range, even if all it does is protest the lack of its key.”

  The corporal grinned and gave a half-salute, with a cheery, “Yes, sir!” She moved her shoulders against the rig and strode away at a good clip, as if testing new boots. Out the door she went, down the corridor a dozen steps, then a quick circle back.

  Brunner watched the girl-soldier with some discomfort. Certainly, she was young; at a guess, several years younger than he, and—solely in his opinion—far too young to be at war. But there, the planetary news source most usually available to the station insisted that the “free breeders” routinely armed children younger than ten Standards. What the news source did not make plain was if those children were armed defensively, or offensively.

  “Security,” said the scout, talking either to the room at large or to the commander, “simply means acknowledging that we have a mobile unit on the surface. We can have no secrets about this: all we are doing is making sure that the planet below gets the kind of meteorological coverage it deserves. Given the interconnectedness of all things, weather belongs to the whole world. And the weather where you are bound, my friend, can teach us something, I’m sure.”

  The scout looked to him; a request for agreement, perhaps, or a reminder of his question?

  “Yes,” Brunner murmured, directing his reply to both scout and commander. “Yes, if this item is in my inventory, it needs to be used if possible.”

  There. It was said. And there was another thing that needed, yet, to be said.

  He turned to directly face Commander Liz Lizardi, and bowed slightly, promising an accurate account of a problematic situation. “Understand that our channels are sometimes monitored . . . Someone on the surface is searching for weather units, and destroying them. I have no doubt that by carrying such a device you will make your force . . . it could attract the attention of those you may not be sided with.”

  She smiled, did the commander and gave a casual salute, as if acknowledging the intent of his bow.

  “Comes with the territory, sir. We’re going down there to straighten out a mess; happens the folks on the other side might not appreciate us much, with or without your piece of equipment. Weather’s a big issue down there—almost another army, by what I’ve seen of the records. If that machine lets me know what I’ve got headed my way—well, sir, it’s worth the risk, from where I stand.”

  Brunner inclined his head, accepting her summation.

  “In that case, I am in favor of going forward. I require the person who is to carry the unit have some formal training beyond, ‘If you push this, the machine will work.’ But I myself will need to read the manuals, as this is not the machine I was trained on.”

  “You would, huh? Well, me too.” She looked at the scout, but it was Jack who answered.

  “We can hold the docking hub for you for two orbits, Liz. More’n that, it’d look like we’re taking sides—”

  “Understood.” She made what might have been a gesture of dismissal—or a call to action, and raised her voice.

  “Redhead! Front and center!”

  * * *

  Tech Brunner, the guy who was going to teach her how to use the weather rig, was short—not dumpy, just small and skinny, kinda like her—maybe shy, or maybe just nervous. Hard to tell how old he was—didn’t she know how easy it was to suppose years off somebody just ’cause they were short and small? His face was smooth, except for some strainlines around his eyes and mouth, like he spent too much time in fron
t of his screens, looking at things that didn’t make him happy. His hair was what they called “ditchwater-blond” back home, not showing any gray; and his eyes were real dark brown, like high-grade chocolate. He had a good voice, firm and cool, and an accent that made it sound almost like he was singing.

  He didn’t have any service marks on his sleeves; his uniform was basically just ship clothes: a shirt with his name above the pocket, slacks with a name on the left rear pocket, no hatch marks. The shirt did have a cloud with a lightning bolt on the pocket, just under his name. She guessed that was maybe a company or team logo, and didn’t help at all with guessing how old he might be.

  He amused Liz for some reason, and she held him back to walk with her and her friend the scout, waving Redhead and the weather rig on ahead. That didn’t mean she was lonely, though, ’cause the big guy—Jack, his name was—tugged right along beside her, hauling what must have been the rig’s shipping crate, and pointing her the way.

  Behind, the talk was half in what Redhead supposed was Liaden, half in Trade and probably half in hand-talk, too, but that didn’t bounce off the walls, so she couldn’t be sure. The whole situation was odd-shaped, off-center and full of politics, in Redhead’s opinion. She’d gotten pretty used to odd since leaving Surebleak, even if the politics sometimes escaped her. Being close ’round Liz maybe more than most new soldiers meant she got to watch some of the inner stuff going down, though she didn’t savvy all of it.

  “There go, kid,” her escort directed in Terran with an accent damn close to Surebleak’s. “Take the corner there. I gotta bring this ’cause there’s a bunch of tech stuff stowed inside, and Mr. Brunner’ll be wanting that after the scout finishes sharing out today’s mess o’ secret. No use us working stiffs hearin’ all that; just makes us anxious.”

  “Call me Redhead, why not?” she suggested, letting the pack settle into the slightly rounded corner of the lift. Damn if she was going back to “kid,” now she had chops on her sleeve. “Or corporal.”

  Jack leaned against the door panel, twitching at a couple of the push plates while he craned his neck to peer down the corridor, then turned back to her.

  “Corporal, is it? They must have rushed grades from what I see.”

  Redhead sighed inwardly, but she knew from experience that the best answer was a joke.

  “Nah, not really,” she said to Jack, deadpan. “I’m big for my age, is all.”

  He shook his head.

  “You can’t be young enough to be big for your age and still carry a gun for Commander Liz,” he said in Trade.

  She followed that without any trouble, grinning wryly.

  “I’ve known Liz a long time. Guess she knew me longer, really, ’cause she was my mother’s friend, even before I was born.”

  Jack nodded sagely. “Right then, she mighta known you longer—” and cut off as something on his capacious belt beeped and something else clanked. His hands moved as quick as the sounds. The beeping stopped but the clanking didn’t, ’cause he was checking the location of some other stuff on the belt. He’d been doing that every so often all the time he’d been in her sight—like he couldn’t stand not knowing exactly where his equipment was. She knew a couple of hands in the Lunatics like that: might call it a nervous habit, but they weren’t the ones to run low on ammo or suddenly need batteries in the field. Might be Jack’d done soldiertime somewhen, though he seemed even more disinclined to salute than Tech Brunner.

  Jack mumbled something and she’d said, “Huh?” before realizing he was talking to his collar. Something twerped on his belt and the lighting in the lift went up a couple notches.

  “Sorry ’bout that, Corporal. Lift’s got some extra solar shielding so I had to go to back-up to get the lights on. Company don’t like to waste power lighting the lifts!” He glanced at her casually, left hand still doing its tour of the belt.

  “Must be handy to have the overrides right on your belt!” she said, honestly admiring such efficiency.

  He sighed, surprisingly deeply. “You might think so, Corporal Redhead, but answer me this: what happens when you control the overrides?”

  She shook her head and shrugged, hands up, the unfamiliar mass on her back making her shift her feet, too, for balance. “Dunno. What happens?”

  “When you control the overrides, sometimes you gotta make the decisions. Comes with the territory. Same with pilots, you know?” He gave her a hard look. “Same like maybe you’ll hafta do, carrying all that info on your back.”

  “Yah,” she said to Jack, nodding in agreement. “I guess that’s so . . .”

  Liz hit the lift, then, ahead of her escort, leaned against the wall opposite Jack, and gave him a grin. “Penthouse, if you please!”

  Jack said something with his hands that Redhead couldn’t see, then the door shut behind the tech and the scout, with Jack and Liz sharing a smile over their heads.

  There was a beep, and the car jerked into motion, going sort of northwest according to Redhead’s stomach. Jack’s belt beeped and the lighting went down a notch.

  “Penthouse, next stop!” he said, maybe louder than he needed to—at least, it seemed Tech Brunner thought so, if he wasn’t frowning about something else entirely. The scout, tucked into the corner next to Liz, only smiled.

  * * *

  Jack was dismantling the shipping crate, piling each piece just so on the conference room floor, making sure that all the pockets and cavities were empty of whatever odds and ends might have been stuffed there. He hummed as he worked, which was annoying, but Brunner kept himself busy by acting the host, quite happy to see the backs of the scout and the commander as they fled for the canteen’s small bar after approving the conference area as a classroom, and after the Scout passed him a small blue envelope.

  The choice of food available from the conference room fresh-case was somewhat more limited than the canteen’s, but since the room was used from time to time for working meetings, it was stocked with some proper teas in addition to coffee, and it held an unreasonably wide supply of chernubia especially baked for Tech Brunner by the canteen’s cook, who applauded his insistence that each meal should be made more memorable by one or two small sweets to choose from.

  The water steaming and a selection of fruited chernubia set out upon a tray, with cups and plates, Brunner turned toward his young student, only to discover her sitting back in the soft, oversized—for her as for him—Terran conference chair, her eyes closed and breath regular. He paused, making use of the unguarded moment to study her more closely.

  Her face was tanned and thin, with a spangle of freckles bridging her nose. Unlike Commander Lizardi, who wore her hair cut close and utilitarian, the halfling had made a single thick dark red braid and wrapped it around her head, like the copper crown of a barbarian princess.

  Her uniform was tight to her slender throat; any jewels or necklace she might wear sealed away from his sight, but her hands, resting half-curled on her knees, were a garden of small silver and gem-chipped rings, matching those in her thin, blue veined ears. None was a Ring as one might find on a delm or even a pilot, rather they were barely more than fine wire. A child’s wealth of play jewels, gaudy and gay. There might be need, he thought, of bright color and friendly glitter in the places this soldier frequented.

  In other dress, and with her hair styled more fashionably, Brunner would not have been surprised to find her at Joint School, or at college, or as a passing guest in his own clanhouse.

  The annoying hum ceased, reminding Brunner that he was not alone with his sleeping student. He turned to see Jack slowly unwinding from his knees to a crouched stand, where he paused for a long moment, as if feeling his age, or perhaps twinges from an old wound.

  “Other stuff’s all here, Brunner. I’m guessing you got the key already, ’cause that’s not. Me, I gotta check some compressors. Catch you next shift!”

  With remarkably few clinks and clanks, Jack stretched to his full height and touched the ceiling with one hand whil
e the other did a quick inventory of his belts. He nodded once to himself, as if satisfied with his count, and departed.

  Brunner fetched the tray, and carried it quietly to the table, unwilling to disturb the child, though his duty as well as hers demanded it. As it came about, he was spared the necessity; her eyes opened before he set the tray down, but he could not help but feel a small flicker of guilt for having disturbed her repose.

  He bowed slightly, the words coming without thought. “Forgive me for disturbing your rest. I bring chernubia and tea, that we might study in comfort, for study we must.”

  The soldier blinked, and pushed herself up straight in the too-large chair.

  “Sorry, sir,” she said huskily, in a rush of backworld Terran. “I—uh, I mean, I guess that’s Liaden. It’s real pretty, but—I don’t know Liaden! Terran’s best, if you speak it—or Trade.” She looked around the room, her eye lighting on the clock and it seemed she reached some further level of wakefulness. “The lesson,” she said, cheeks coloring, “we don’t have much time!”

  Momentarily, Brunner’s mind went blank, empty of words in any language. He hadn’t realized how much he had been certain that she—how much he had needed someone who would be delighted with chernubia, and tea, and who would hear the language of home with pleasure . . .

  “Yes,” he managed at last, and found a smile for her youth and her obvious embarrassment. “Of course, I speak Terran. How else?”

  * * *

  They’d settled on Tech, or Brunner or Tech Brunner; and Robertson or Redhead. So Liaden a name as “Miri” attached to one with such an accent and so misplaced a sense of food as to prefer coffee to his carefully brewed tea—that was awkward, even unacceptable. Corporal Robertson had the Terran habit of trying to shorten names, but he could not hear himself called “Liad,” nor would she allow “Ich” as acceptable.

  “These are great! Never had anything so good!”

  It was the fifth time she had told him so, and it made him feel she was even younger than he had first supposed.