A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  Eventually, Obrelt turned away from the window and came forward to face her.

  “It is a strange path we would set the child upon, Sister, to a place where none of his age-mates may follow. He will sail between stars while his cousins inventory stock in back storerooms. I ask you, for you have given him his own room in your heart: Do we serve him ill or well by making him a stranger to his kin?”

  And that was the question that needed to be asked, when all considerations of cantra costs were ended. What was best done for Ren Zel himself, for the good of all the clan?

  Chane set her glass aside and met her Delm’s eyes straightly.

  “He is already a stranger among us,” she said, speaking as truly as she knew how. “Among his age-mates he is a cipher—he is liked, perhaps, but largely ignored. He goes his own way, quiet, tidy, courteous—and invisible. Today—today, when the pilots returned him to me, it was as if I beheld an entirely different child. His cheeks glowed, his eyes sparkled, he walked at the side of the master pilot visible and proud.” She took a breath, sighed it out.

  “Brother, this boy is not a shopkeeper. Best for us all that we give him the stars.”

  And so it was decided.

  REN ZEL ACHIEVED his first class piloting license on the nineteenth anniversary of his Name Day. He was young for the rank, especially for one who had not sprung from a piloting House, but not precocious.

  Having thus canceled out half of his tuition and fees, he set himself to paying off the balance as quickly as possible. It had been plain to him for several years that the clan had gone to extraordinary expense on his behalf and he did not wish his cousins to be burdened by a debt that rightly belonged only to himself. That being so, he had the Guild accountant write a contract transferring the amount owed from Clan Obrelt to Ren Zel dea’Judan Clan Obrelt, as a personal debt.

  He was young, but he had a reputation among the elder pilots with whom he’d flown for being both steady and level-headed, a reputation they were glad to broadcast on the Port.

  That being so, contracts came his way—good contracts, with pay-outs in the top percentage of the Guild’s rates. Often enough, there was a bonus, for Ren Zel had a wizard’s touch with a coord string—or so his elders praised him. Those same elders urged him to go for Master, and he thought he would, someday.

  After he cleared his debt.

  IT WAS NIGHT-PORT at Casia by the time he finished shutdown and gave the ship into the keeping of the client’s agent. Ren Zel slung his kit over a shoulder and descended the ramp, filling his lungs with free air. World air tasted different than ship air, though he would have been hard put to say which flavor he preferred, beyond observing that, of world air, he found Casia’s the sweetest.

  At the bottom of the ramp, he turned right and walked leisurely through the night-yard, then out into the thoroughfare of Main Port.

  The job he had just completed had been profitable—an exhilarating run, in fact, with the entire fee paid up front and a generous bonus at the far end. A half-dozen more like it would retire his debt. Not that such runs were common.

  Night-port was tolerably busy. He saw a pilot he knew and raised a hand in greeting. The other waved and cut across the crowded walkway.

  “Ren Zel! I haven’t seen you in an age! There’s a lot of us down Findoir’s—come and share a glass or two!”

  He smiled, but moved his hand in a gesture of regret. “I’m just in. Haven’t been to Guild Hall yet.”

  “Well, there’s a must,” the other allowed cheerfully. “Come after you’ve checked in, do, for I tell you we mean to make a rare night of it. Otaria’s gotten her first.”

  “No, has she? Give her my compliments.”

  “Come down after you’ve checked in and give them to her yourself,” his friend said, laying a hand briefly on his sleeve. “Until soon, Ren Zel.”

  “Until soon, Lai Tor.”

  Warmed, he continued on his way and not many minutes later walked up the stairs into Casiaport Guild Hall.

  The night clerk took his license, scanned it and slid it back across the counter. “Welcome home, Pilot.” She tapped keys, frowning down at her readout. Ren Zel put his card away and waited while she accessed his file.

  “Two deposits have been made to your account,” she said, scrolling down. “One has cleared, and twelve percent clan share has been paid. Eleven-twelfths of the balance remaining has gone against the Pilots Guild Tuition Account, per standing orders. No contracts pending . . .” She paused, then glanced up. “I have a letter for you, Pilot. One moment.” She left the console and walked to the back.

  Ren Zel frowned. A letter? A paper letter? Who would—

  The clerk was back, holding a buff-colored envelope. She used her chin to point at the palm reader set into the surface of the counter.

  “Verification, please, Pilot.”

  Obediently, he put his palm over the reader, felt the slight tingle, heard the beep. He lifted his hand and the clerk handed him the envelope. His fingers found the seal embossed on the sealed flap—Obrelt’s sign.

  Ren Zel inclined his head to the clerk.

  “My thanks.”

  “Well enough,” she replied and looked once more her screen. “Status?”

  He paused on the edge of telling her “on call,” feeling the envelope absurdly heavy in his hand.

  “Unavailable,” he said, fingers moving over the seal.

  She struck a last key and inclined her head.

  “So recorded.”

  “My thanks,” he said again and, shouldering his kit, walked across the hall to the common room.

  As luck would have it, the parlor was empty. He closed the door behind him, dropped his kit and slid his finger under the seal.

  A letter from Obrelt? His hands were not quite steady as he unfolded the single sheet of paper. Paper letters had weight, and were not dispatched for pleasantries.

  Has someone died? he wondered, and hoped that it might not be Chane, or Arn Eld or—

  The note was brief, written in Obrelt’s Own Hand.

  Ren Zel dea’Judan was required at his Clan House, immediately upon receipt of this letter.

  His delm judged it time for him to wed.

  IT WAS MORNING WHEN the taxi pulled up before Obrelt’s House. Ren Zel paid the fare, then stood on the walkway until the cab drove away.

  He had not come quite “immediately,” there being no reason to rouse the House at midnight when so many were required to rise early and open the various shops under Obrelt’s care. And he was himself the better for a shower, a nap and a change of clothes, though it was still not easy to consider the reason he had been summoned home.

  Home.

  Ren Zel turned and looked up the walk, to the fence and the gate and the tall town house beyond them. He had grown up in this House, among the noisy gaggle of his sibs and cousins; it was to this House that he had returned on his brief holidays from school. Granted, he had come back less often after he had finished with his lessons, but there had been flight time to acquire, techniques to master and the first class to win.

  Once he held first class, of course, there had been contracts to fulfill, the debt to reduce. Between contracts, he had routinely kept his status on “on call,” which required him to lodge at the Guild Hall. The debt shrunk, but so, too, did his contact with his family.

  He looked at the gate, and took a deep breath, steeling himself as if for some dreaded ordeal. Which was nonsense. Beyond the gate were only his kin—his clan, which existed to shelter him and to care for him and to shield him from harm.

  He took a step up the walkway.

  The gate in the wall surrounding Obrelt’s house sprang open and a woman emerged from the fastness beyond, walking briskly in her neat, shopkeeper’s uniform and her sensible boots, a manager’s clipboard cuddled against her breast.

  She saw him and checked, eyes widening for the leather-jacketed stranger on Obrelt’s very walk. Ren Zel held out his hands, palms showing empty.

/>   “Eba,” he said softly to his next eldest sister, “it is I.”

  “Ren Zel?” Her gaze moved over his face, finding enough of Obrelt there to soothe her into a smile and a step forward, hand extended. “Brother, I scarcely knew you!”

  He smiled in his turn and went to take her hand.

  “The jacket disarmed you, doubtless.”

  She laughed, kin-warm. “Doubtless. Jump-pilot, eh? It suits you extremely.”

  Eba had been his favorite sister—young enough not to entirely despise the childish projects of a younger brother, yet old enough to stand as sometimes ally against the more boisterous of the cousins. Ren Zel pressed her fingers.

  “I find you well?”

  “Well,” she conceded, and then, playfully, “And well you find me at all, rogue! How many relumma have passed since you last came to us? I suppose it’s nothing to you that I am tomorrow sent to Morjan for a twelve-day? I was to have left today, but necessity calls me to the shop. Say at least you will be at Prime!”

  “I believe I shall,” he said. “The delm calls me home, on business.”

  “Ah!” She looked wise. “One had heard something of that. You will be pleased, I think.” She dropped his hand and patted the leather sleeve of his jacket. “Go on inside. I must to the shop.”

  “Yes, of course.” She read his hesitation, though, and laughed softly, shaking her glossy dark hair back.

  “You cannot stand out on the walk all day, you know! Until Prime, Ren Zel!”

  “Until Prime, Eba,” he replied, and watched her down the walk. She turned at the corner without looking back. Ren Zel squared his shoulders, walked up to the gate and lay his palm against the plate.

  A heartbeat later, he was within Obrelt’s walls. Directly thereafter, the front door accepted his palmprint and he stepped into the house.

  His nose led him to the dining room, and he stood on the threshold several minutes before one of the cousins caught sight of him, touched the arm of the cousin next to him, who turned, then spoke quickly—quietly—to the cousin next to her until in no time the whole busy, bustling room was still, all eyes on the man under the archway.

  “Well.” One stirred, stood up from her place at the table.

  “Don’t dawdle in the doorway, child,” said Aunt Chane, for all the stars as if he were ten again. “Come in and break your fast.”

  “Yes, Aunt,” he said meekly and walked forward. The cousins shook themselves, took up the threads of their conversations, poured tea and chose slices of sweet toast. Ren Zel came to the table and made his bow.

  “Ma’am.”

  “Ren Zel.” She held out a hand, beckoning, and he stepped to her side. Chane smiled, then, and kissed his cheek. “Welcome home.”

  AUNT CHANE SAT ON the short side of the table across which Ren Zel and Obrelt Himself faced each other, in the Advocate’s Chair. The wine was poured and the ritual sip taken; then the glasses were set aside and Obrelt laid the thing out.

  “The name of the lady we propose for your wife is Elsu Meriandra Clan Jabun,” he said, in his usual bluff way.

  Ren Zel blinked, for Jabun was a Clan old in piloting. Certainly, it was not Korval, but for outworld Casia it was very well indeed—and entirely above Obrelt’s touch.

  The Delm held up a hand. “Yes, they are beyond us absolutely—pilots to shopkeepers. But Obrelt has a pilot of its own to bring to the contract suite and Jabun was not uninterested.”

  But surely, Ren Zel thought, surely, the only way in which Obrelt might afford such a contract was to cede the child to Jabun—and that made no sense at all. Jabun was a Clan of pilots, allied with other of the piloting Houses. What use had they for the seed of a child of Obrelt, bred of shopkeepers, the sole pilot produced by the House in all its history? He was a fluke, a changeling; no true-breeding piloting stock such as they might wish to align with themselves.

  “The child of the contract,” his Delm continued, “will come to Obrelt.”

  Well, yes, and that made sense, if Obrelt found pilot wages to its taste and wished to diversify its children. But, gods, the expense! And no guarantee that his child would be any more pilot than Eba!

  “No,” Aunt Chane said dryly, “we have not run mad. Recruit yourself, child.”

  Ren Zel took a deep breath. “One wishes not to put the clan into shadow,” he said softly.

  “We have been made to understand this,” Obrelt said, of equal dryness with his sister. “Imagine my astonishment when I learned that a debt contracted by the House for the good of the House had been reassigned to one Ren Zel dea’Judan Clan Obrelt. At his request, of course.”

  “My contracts are profitable,” Ren Zel murmured. “There was no need for the House to bear the burden.”

  “The clan receives a tithe of your wages,” Aunt Chane pointed out.

  He inclined his head. “Of course.”

  He looked up in time to see his aunt and his delm exchange a look undecipherable to him. The delm cleared his throat.

  “Very well. For the matter at hand—Jabun and I have reached an equitable understanding. Jabun desires his daughter to meet you before the lines are signed. That meeting is arranged for tomorrow evening, at the House of Jabun. The lines will be signed on the day after, here in our own house. The contract suite stands ready to receive you.”

  The day after tomorrow? Ren Zel thought, feeling his stomach clench as it did when he faced an especially tricksy bit of piloting. Precisely as if he were sitting board, he took a breath and forced himself to relax. Of course, he would do as his delm instructed him—obedience to the delm, subservience to the greater good of the clan, was bred deep in his bones. To defy the delm was to endanger the clan, and without the clan there was no life. It was only—the matter came about so quickly . . .

  “There was a need for haste,” Aunt Chane said, for the second time apparently reading his mind. “Pilot Meriandra’s ship is come into dock for rebuilding and she is at liberty to marry. It amuses Jabun to expand his alliances—and it profits Obrelt to gain for itself the child of two pilots.” She paused. “Put yourself at ease: the price is not beyond us.”

  “Yes, Aunt,” he said, for there was nothing else to say. Two days hence, he would be wed; his child to come into clan, to be sheltered and shaped by those who held his interests next to their hearts. The Code taught that this was well, and fitting, and just. He had no complaint and ought, indeed, feel honored, that the clan lavished so much care on him.

  But his stomach was still uncertain when they released him at last to settle his business at the Port and to register his upcoming marriage with the Guild.

  THE LINES WERE signed, the contract sealed. Elsu Meriandra received her delm’s kiss and obediently allowed her hand to be placed into the hand of Delm Obrelt.

  “Behold, the treasure of our clan,” Jabun intoned, while all of Clan Obrelt stood witness. “Keep her safe and return her well to us, at contract’s end.”

  “Willingly we receive Elsu, the treasure of Jabun,” Obrelt responded. “Our House stands vigilant for her, as if for one of our own.”

  “It is well,” Jabun replied, and bowed to his daughter. “Rest easy, my child, in the House of our ally.”

  The cousins came forward then to make their bows. Ren Zel stood at the side of his contract-bride and made her known to each, from Obrelt Himself down to the youngest child in the nursery—his sister Eba’s newest.

  After that, there was the meal of welcoming. Ren Zel, who held lesser rank in Obrelt than his wife held in Jabun, was seated considerably down-table. This was according to Code, which taught that Obrelt could not impose Ren Zel’s status on Elsu, who was accustomed to sitting high; nor could her status elevate him, since she was a guest in his House.

  He had eaten but lightly of the meal, listening to the cousins on either side talk shop. From time to time he glimpsed his wife, high up-table between his sister Farin and his cousin, Wil Bar, fulfilling her conversational duty to her meal partners. She did not look
down-table.

  The meal at last over, Ren Zel and Aunt Chane escorted Jabun’s treasure throughout Obrelt’s house, showing her the music room, the formal parlor and the tea room, the game room and the door to the back garden. In the library, Aunt Chane had her place a palm against the recording plate. This registered her with the House computer and insured that the doors allowed to contract-spouses would open at her touch.

  Departing the library, they turned left down the hall, not right toward the main stair, and Aunt Chane led the way up the private stairway to the closed wing. In the upper hallway, she paused by the first door and bowed to Elsu Meriandra.

  “Your room, contract-daughter. If you find aught awry, only pick up the house phone and call me. It will be my honor to repair any error.”

  Elsu bowed in turn.

  “The House shows me great kindness,” she said, most properly, her high, sweet voice solemn. She straightened and put her hand against the plate. The door slid open and she was gone, though Ren Zel thought she looked at him, a flickering glance through modestly lowered lashes, in the instant before the door closed behind her.

  Though it was not necessary, Aunt Chane guided him to the third and last door on the hallway. She turned and smiled.

  “Temporary quarters.”

  This sort of levity was not like his aunt and Ren Zel was startled into a smile of his own. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Thank us, is it?” She tipped her head, considering him in the hall’s dim light. “Let the flowers aid you,” she said softly. “It will be well, child.”

  He had his doubts, in no way alleviated by the few words he had actually exchanged with his wife, but it would serve no useful purpose to share them with Aunt Chane. The clan desired a child borne of the union of pilots: His part was plainly writ.

  So, he smiled again and raised her hand, laying his cheek against the backs of her fingers in a gesture of kin-love. “It will be well,” he repeated, for her comfort.