A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  “Ah.” She seemed on the edge of saying something further, but in the end simply inclined her head before walking, alone, back the way they had come.

  After a moment, Ren Zel put his hand against the door and entered his temporary quarters.

  He had been here yesterday, moving in his clothes and such of his books as he thought would be prudent. He had even opened the inner door and gone into the middle room—into the contract-room itself—walking lightly on the lush carpet.

  The bed was ornate, old, and piled high with pillows. The flowers twined up two bedposts and climbed across the connecting bars, spilling down in luxuriant curtains of green and blue. Sunlight poured down from the overhead window, heating the blossoms and releasing the aphrodisiac scent. Standing by the wine-table, Ren Zel had felt his blood stir and taken a step away, deliberately turning his back on the bed.

  The rest of the room was furnished but sparsely: there was the wine-table, of course; and a small table with two chairs, at which two might take a private meal; and a wide, yellow brocade sofa facing a fireplace where sweet logs were laid, awaiting the touch of a flamestick. The solitary window was that above the bed; the walls were covered in nubbled silk the color of the brocaded sofa.

  Across the room—directly across the room from the door by which he had entered—was another door. Beyond, he knew, was another room, like the room he had just quit, where his sisters were laying out those things Elsu Meriandra had sent ahead.

  Some trick of the rising heat had filled his nostrils with flower-scent again and Ren Zel had retreated to his own quarters, locking the door to the contract-room behind him.

  Now, showered and dressed in the robe his sisters had given him in celebration of his marriage, he paused to consider what little he knew of his wife.

  She was his elder by nearly three Standards, fair-haired, wide-eyed, and comely. He thought that she was, perhaps, a little spoilt, and he supposed that came of being the true-daughter of a High Clan delm. Her manners were not entirely up in the boughs, however, and she spoke to Aunt Chane precisely as she ought. If she had little to say to him beyond those things that the Code demanded, it was scarcely surprising. He was in all things her inferior: rank, flight-time, age, and beauty. And, truth be told, they had not been brought together to converse.

  That which had brought them together—well. He had taken himself to the sleep learner, to review the relevant section of Code, for the contract-bed was a far different thing than a breakshift tumble with a comrade—and there his wife had the advantage of him again. She had been married once already, to a pilot near her equal her rank, and Jabun had her child in its keeping.

  Sighing, he straightened his garment about him, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror: ordinary, practical Ren Zel, got up in a magnificent indigo-and-silver marriage robe that quite overwhelmed his commonplace features. Sighing again, he glanced at the clock on the dresser.

  The hour was upon him.

  Squaring his shoulders under their burden of embroidery, Ren Zel went to the inner door, and lay his palm against the plate. The door opened.

  Elsu Meriandra was at the wine-table, back to him. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her robe an expensive simplicity of flowing golden shadowsilk, through which he could plainly see her body. She heard the door open and turned, her eyes wide, lustrous with the spell of the bed-flowers.

  “Good evening,” she said, her high voice sounding somewhat breathless. “Will you drink a glass with me . . . Ren Zel?”

  His name. A good sign, that. Ren Zel took a breath, tasting the flowers, and deliberately drew the scent deep into his lungs. He smiled at the woman before him.

  “I will be happy to share a glass with you, Elsu,” he said softly, and stepped into the contract-room.

  REN ZEL WOKE IN the room he had been allotted, and stretched, luxuriating in his solitude even as he cataloged his various aches. The lady was not a gentle lover. He thought he could have borne this circumstance with more equanimity, had he any indication that her exuberance sprang from an enthusiasm for himself. To the contrary, she had brushed his attentions aside, as one might dismiss the annoying graspings of a child.

  Well, he thought ruefully, he had heard that the flower did sometimes produce . . . unwarranted . . . effects.

  So thinking, he rolled neatly out of bed, showered, and dressed in his usual plain shirt and pants. He stamped into his boots and picked up his latest book—a slender volume of Terran poetry. The habit of taking a book with him to breakfast had formed when he was a child and it had come to his notice that the cousins let him be, if he were diligently reading.

  He was passing the game room on his way to the dining hall when the sound of child’s laughter gave him pause.

  It was not entirely . . . comfortable . . . laughter, he thought. Rather, it sounded breathless, and just a little shrill. Ren Zel put his hand against the door and, quietly, looked inside.

  Elsu Meriandra was playing catch with young Son Dor, who had, Ren Zel remembered, all of eight Standards. She was pitching the ball sharply and in unexpected directions, exactly as one might do when playing with a pilot—or one destined to be a pilot.

  Son Dor was giving a good accounting of himself, considering that he was neither a pilot nor the child of a pilot. But he was clearly at the limit of both his speed and his skill, chest heaving and face wet with exertion. As Ren Zel watched, he dove for the ball, reacting to its motion, rather than anticipating its probable course, actually got a hand on it and cradled it against his chest. He threw it, none too steadily, back to Elsu Meriandra, who fielded the toss smoothly.

  “That was a good effort,” she said, as Ren Zel drifted into the room, meaning to speak to her, to offer her a tour of the garden and thus allow Son Dor to escape with his melant’i intact.

  “Try this one,” Elsu said and Ren Zel saw her hands move in the familiar sequence, giving the ball both velocity and spin. Dropping his book, he leapt, extended an arm and snagged the thing at the height of its arc. He danced in a circle, the sphere spinning in a blur from hand to hand, force declining, momentum slowing, until it was only a ball again—a toy, and nothing likely to break a child’s fragile fingers, extended in a misguided attempt to catch it.

  “Cousin Ren Zel!” Son Dor cried. “I could have caught it! I could have!”

  Ren Zel laughed and danced a few more steps, the ball spinning lazily now on the tips of his fingers.

  “Of course you could have, sweeting,” he said, easily. “But you were having so much fun, it was more than I could do not to join in.” He smiled, the ball spinning slowly. “Catch now,” he said to Son Dor, and allowed the toy to leave his fingers.

  The child rushed forward and caught it with both hands.

  “Well done!” Ren Zel applauded. Son Dor flushed with pleasure and tossed the ball back. Ren Zel caught it one-handed, and allowed his gaze to fall upon the wall clock.

  “Cousin,” he said, looking back to the child, “is it not time for history lessons?”

  Son Dor spun, stared at the clock, gasped, and spun back, remembering almost at once to make his bow.

  “Ma’am, forgive me. I am wanted at my studies.”

  “Certainly,” Elsu said. “Perhaps we might play ball again, when your studies free you.”

  Son Dor looked just a bit uneasy about that, but replied courteously. “It would be my pleasure, ma’am.” He glanced aside.

  “Cousin . . .”

  Ren Zel waved a hand. “Yes, all you like, but do not, I implore you, be late to Uncle Arn Eld. You know how he grumbles when one is late!”

  Apparently Son Dor knew just that, and the knowledge gave his feet wings. The door thumped closed behind him and Ren Zel let out his breath in a long sigh before turning to face Elsu Meriandra.

  She was standing with her head tipped, an expression of amused curiosity upon her face.

  “He is not,” Ren Zel said, stringently even, “a pilot. He will never be a pilot.”

 
She frowned slightly at that and motioned for the ball. He threw it to her underhanded and she brought it, spinning hard, up onto her fingers.

  “Are you certain of that, I wonder? Sometimes, when they are young, they are a little lazy. When that is the case, the spinball may be depended upon to produce the correct response.”

  Ren Zel moved his shoulders, letting the tension flow out of him. She did not understand—how could she? Pilot from a House of pilots. He sighed.

  “The children of this House are shopkeepers. They have the reactions and the instincts of shopkeepers.” He paused, thinking of Son Dor, laboring after a toss that a pilot’s child would find laughably easy.

  “He was striving not to disappoint,” he told Elsu Meriandra. “What you see as ‘a little lazy’ is Son Dor’s best reaction time. The spinball—forgive me—damage might well have been done.”

  Her face blanked. She caught the ball with a snap and bowed, unexpectedly low. “It was not my intention to endanger a child of the House.”

  She straightened and looked at him out of the sides of her eyes. “One was told, of course, but it is difficult to recall that this is not a House of pilots. Especially when there is yourself! Why, one can hardly hold a conversation in Guild Hall without hearing of your accomplishments!” She bowed again, more lightly this time. “You do our Guild great honor.”

  She did not wait for his reply, but turned and crossed the room to put the ball away. After a moment, Ren Zel went to pick up his fallen book.

  “What have you?” she asked from just behind him. He turned and showed her the cover.

  She frowned at the outlandish lettering. “That is Terran, is it not?”

  “Indeed. Duet for the Star Routes is the title. Poetry.”

  “You read Terran?” She seemed somewhat nonplused by this information.

  “I read Terran—a little. I am reading poetry to sharpen my comprehension, since I find it a language strong in metaphor.”

  Elsu moved her gaze from the book to his face. “You speak Terran.”

  That was not a question, but he answered it anyway. “Not very well, I fear. I meet so few to practice against that my skill is very basic.”

  “Why,” she asked, the frown back between her eyes, “would you wish to learn these things?”

  Ren Zel blinked. “Well, I am a pilot. My craft takes me to many ports, some of them Terran. I was . . . dismayed . . . not to be able to converse with my fellows on those ports and so I began to study.” He paused. “Do you not speak Terran?”

  “I do not,” she returned sharply. “I speak Trade, which is sufficient, if I am impelled into conversation with—with someone who is not able to speak the High Tongue.”

  “I see,” Ren Zel murmured, wondering how to extricate himself from a conversation that was growing rapidly unpleasant for them both. Before he arrived at a solution, however, the lady changed the subject herself.

  “Come, we are both pilots—one of us at least legendary in skill!” she said gaily. “What do you say we shake the House dust from our feet and fly?”

  It sounded a good plan, he owned; for he was weary of being Housebound already. There was, however, one difficulty.

  “I regret,” he said, his voice sounding stiff in his own ears. “Obrelt does not keep a ship. One is a pilot-for-hire.”

  “As I am,” she said brightly. “But do not repine, if you haven’t your own ship. I own one and will gladly have you sit second board.”

  Well, and that was generous enough, Ren Zel thought. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the better the scheme appeared. They were, as she said, both pilots. Perhaps they might win through to friendship, if they sat board together. Only look at what had lain between himself and Lai Tor—and see what comrades they had become, after shared flight had made their minds known to each other.

  So—“You are generous,” he told Elsu Meriandra. “It would be pleasant to stretch one’s wings.”

  “Good. Let me get my jacket. I will meet you in the front hall.”

  “Well enough,” he said. “I will inform the House.”

  ELSU’S SHIP WAS A small middle-aged packetspacer, built for intra-system work, not for hyperspace. It would also, Ren Zel thought, eyeing its lines as he followed his contract-wife toward the ramp, do well in atmospheric flight. The back-swept wings and needle-nose gave it an eerie resemblance to the raptors that lived in the eaves of the Port Tower, preying on lesser birds and mice.

  “There,” Elsu used her key and the ship’s door slid open. She stepped inside and turned to make him an exaggerated bow, her blue eyes shining.

  “Pilot, be welcome on my ship.”

  He bowed honor to the owner and stepped into the ship. The hatch slid shut behind him.

  Elsu led the way down the companionway to the piloting chamber. She fair flung herself into the chair, her hands flying across the board, rousing systems, initiating checks. From the edge of the chamber, Ren Zel watched as she woke her ship, her motions nearer frenzy than the smooth control his teachers had bade him strive to achieve.

  She turned in the pilot’s chair, her face flushed, eyes brilliantly blue, and raised a hand to beckon him forward.

  “Come, come! Second board awaits you, as we agreed! Sit and make yourself known to the ship!” Her high voice carried a note that seemed to echo the frenzy of her board-run and Ren Zel hesitated a moment longer, not quite trusting—

  “So an intra-system is not to your liking?” she inquired, her voice sharp with ridicule. “Perhaps the legendary Ren Zel dea’Judan flies only Jump-ships.”

  That stung, and he very nearly answered in kind. Then he recalled her as she had been the night before, inflicting her hurts, tempting him, or so it seemed, to hurt her in return—and he made his answer mild.

  “Indeed, I took my second class on just such a ship as this,” he said and walked forward at last to sit in the copilot’s chair.

  She glanced at him out of the edge of her eyes. “Forgive me, Pilot. I am not usually so sharp. The lift will improve my temper.”

  He could think of nothing to say to that and covered this lapse by sliding his license into the slot. There was a moment’s considering pause from the ship’s computer, then his board came live with a beep. Ren Zel initiated systems check.

  Elsu Meriandra was already on line to the Tower, requesting clearance. “On business of Clan Jabun,” Ren Zel heard and spun in his chair to stare at her. To characterize a mere pleasure-lift as—

  His wife cut the connection to the Tower, looked over to him and laughed. “Oh, wonderful! And say you have never told Tower that a certain lift was just a little more urgent than the facts supported!”

  “And yet we are not on the business of Clan Jabun,” Ren Zel pointed out, remembering to speak mildly.

  “Pah!” she returned, her fingers dancing across the board, waking the gyros and the navcomp. “It is certainly in the best interest of Jabun that one of its children not deteriorate into a jittercase, for cause of being worldbound.” She leaned back in the pilot’s chair and sighed. “Ah, but it will be fine to lift, will it not, Pilot?”

  “Yes,” Ren Zel said truthfully. “Whither bound, Pilot?”

  “Just into orbit, I think, and a long skim down. Do you fancy a late-night dinner at Head o’Port when we are through?”

  Ren Zel’s entire quartershare was insufficient to purchase a dinner at Head o’Port, which he rather thought she knew.

  “Why not a glass and a dinner at Findoir’s? There are bound to be some few of our comrades there.”

  She moved her shoulders. The comm beeped and she flipped the toggle.

  “Dancer.”

  While she listened to Tower’s instruction, Ren Zel finished his board checks and, seeing that she was feeding coords into her side, reached ’round to engage the shock webbing.

  “Pilot?” he inquired, when she made no move to do the same.

  “Eh?” She blinked at him, then smiled. “Oh, I often fly unwebbed! It enhances the pl
easure immeasurably.”

  Perhaps it did, but it was also against every regulation he could think of. He opened his mouth to say so, but she waved a slim hand at him.

  “No, do not say it! Regulation is all very well when one is flying contract, but this is pleasure, and I intend to be pleased!” She turned back to her board. The seconds to lift were counting down on the center board. Ren Zel ran another quick, unobtrusive check, then Elsu hit the engage and they were rising.

  It was a fine, blood-warming thing, that lift. Elsu flew at the very edge of her craft’s limits and Ren Zel found plenty to do as second board. He found her rhythm at last and matched it, the two of them putting the packet through its paces. They circled Casia twice, hand-flying, rather than let the automatics have it. Ren Zel was utterly absorbed by the task, caught up entirely in the other pilot’s necessity, enwrapped in that state of vivid concentration that comes when one is flying well, in tune with one’s flight-partner, and—

  His board went dead.

  Automatically, his hand flashed out, slapping the toggle for the back-up board.

  Nothing happened.

  “Be at ease, Pilot!” Elsu Meriandra murmured, next to him. “I have your board safe. And now we shall have us a marvelous skim!”

  She’d overridden him. Ren Zel felt panic boil in his belly, forced himself to breathe deeply, to impose calm. He was second board on a ship owned by the pilot sitting first. As first, she had overridden his board. It was her right to do so, for any reason, or for none—regulations and custom backed her on this.

  So, he breathed deeply, as he had been taught, and leaned back in his chair, the shock web snug around him, watching the descent on the screens.

  Elsu’s path of re-entry was steep—Ren Zel had once seen a tape of a scout descent that was remarkably like the course she had chosen. She sat close over the board, unwebbed, her face intent, a fever-glitter in her eyes, her hands hurtling across her board, fingers flickering, frenzy just barely contained.