by Sharon Lee
“I wonder,” Scholar Caylon continued, unruffled, “if you might procure for me a recording of Bechimo’s landing at Surebleak Port.”
“Certainly. Is there urgency attached?”
“If I could examine that record today, then I may have an answer for Theo before she leaves us.”
“Today it shall be, then,” Val Con said jauntily. “Is there any other service I might perform for you?”
“Thank you, no.” Scholar Caylon smiled, bright and uncomplicated as a daisy. “You are a patient child. I do very much admire the trait, but wonder how you achieved it.”
“Ah.” Val Con’s smile was subtle. “I believe we must lay the blame at Uncle Er Thom’s feet, who was, so my foster-mother swore, the longest-tempered man in three sectors.”
Scholar Caylon tipped her head, eyebrows drawn.
“Which three sectors?”
“Do you know,” Val Con answered seriously, “she never said.”
Scholar Caylon laughed.
Val Con bowed once more, and left them.
- - - - -
Kamele read the Board’s letter for the third time. Satisfied that it granted everything she had asked for, she filed it, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes.
“That,” she said, perhaps to Phileas, dozing on her lap, “was . . . easy.”
The cat puffered a sleepy purr. Of course it had been easy, that soft rasp implied; who dared stand between Scholar-Administrator Kamele Waitley and that which the Scholar-Administrator desired?
She half laughed. Jen Sar had been in the habit of concocting conversational gambits, and occasional amusing setdowns, on behalf of the cats. She had been pleased to style it a harmless male eccentricity, considerably less annoying than similarly petty habits adopted by the onagrata of some of her acquaintance. It seemed, however, that the cats insisted on their rights, and in Jen Sar’s absence, she had become the voice of their often outrageous opinions.
“Still,” she said to Phileas, “they might have been a bit more obstructive. I would have been equal to a battle.”
In fact, she would have welcomed a warm battle of protocols, and just like the Board to disoblige her, granting her application for academic leave without so much as a request for confirmation of her years of service.
“I suppose my colleagues have been gossiping even more loudly than usual.”
And how could they not? Her household arrangement had been for many years of general interest. First, her choice of an onagrata—he so much her elder, in years and in honors—who routinely turned down offers to become attached to much more senior and honored women, in order to sit as housefather to a mere professor in a minor field. Add to that very nearly irregular relationship a daughter known campus-wide for her . . . odd ways, and one could scarcely fail to be an oft-revisited topic.
Theo’s successes off-world in a trade that very few scholars understood had placed her outside of gossip. Even Kamele’s continued, strange, but not quite anti-social, preference for the company of one man had become, by dint of long standing, almost . . . usual.
Until he left her.
Suddenly, all the old gossip was new again—especially as she was now a wealthy and propertied woman. Such things were outside the notice of scholars, of course, but—grist for the mill, and sauce for the goose, nonetheless.
And, now, the Board’s quick approval of her request . . .
“I do believe I’m emotionally fragile,” Kamele told Phileas, “and must be treated with care. It may be that the Board thinks I’m going to take treatment.”
The cat sighed, opining that the Board’s delusions made no matter, so long as Kamele was free to do as she wished.
After a few more moments of frowning consideration, Kamele was inclined to agree.
THIRTY-TWO
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
“Good evening, Theo. You look charming.”
She turned carefully, minding the long hem, and bowed to Boss Conrad, her cousin Pat Rin, Quin’s father. He smiled and bowed back, utterly at ease in his pretty ruffled shirt and tight black pants. The ballroom lights struck glints of red from the depths of his dark hair.
“We have been so hectic down in the city that I have not yet made the two of you known to each other.”
The lady he brought forward was dressed in what appeared to be a quantity of diaphanous scarves patterned in bronze and green, draped in a way that bared shapely brown shoulders.
“Theo, here is Inas Bhar, called Natesa, who does me the very great honor of sharing her life. Natesa, here is Uncle Daav’s daughter, of whom I told you, my cousin Theo Waitley.”
“Theo Waitley, I am very pleased to meet you.” Her bow was sweet; her voice low and supple.
Okay, this was Quin’s “foster-mother,” as he had it, and seemed more than a little nervous about sharing a house with her.
Theo could see why he was worried—hadn’t she given herself a headache and a stomachache, too, worrying that Kamele might take an onagrata in Father’s place?
Natesa now . . . She was, Theo thought, definitely a pilot, with an undefinable edge of something else. Maybe she was a Scout, too.
Carefully, she returned Natesa’s bow, counting, like Quin had taught her, so she didn’t seem rushed or rude.
“Natesa, I’m pleased to meet you, too,” she answered, and looked again to Pat Rin. “Quin’s been a big help to me,” she said. “He and Padi made sure I learned the dances, and he’s been helping me with my bows.”
“Yes,” Pat Rin said. “He mentioned how very much he has been enjoying your time together.”
That was probably a reach. In fact, it had been Theo’s distinct impression that Quin had been under orders the night of her arrival to make sure she’d survived her first encounter with Lady Kareen. Afterward, there had been a whole bunch of stuff that she’d needed to be brought up to speed with, so as not to dishonor the House or annoy his grandmother. Quin had continued on the job, Padi sitting copilot, that being how the two of them had stood with each other during their time “enclosed by safety.”
“I hope we will have the felicity of seeing you dance this evening,” Pat Rin said, bringing her back to the present. “For now, I ask that you excuse us so that we may greet our other guests.”
“Please, don’t stint the guests on my account,” Theo said, stepping back with the slight inclination of the upper body that Padi insisted was polite and necessary when parting from someone whom duty called. “Natesa, I hope to have a chance to speak with you again, at greater length.”
“That would be a pleasure,” the other woman said, bending her sleek head briefly as she passed by on Pat Rin’s arm, the two of them on course for the depths of the room, leaving Theo to relax into her place near the interior door.
Previously, Theo had only known the ballroom as a wide, high-ceilinged chamber admirably suited for bowli ball. Unfortunately, Mr. pel’Kana had ruled that all such exertions be performed either outside on clement days, or in the gymnasium, which boasted, among other niceties, a high ceiling, no windows, a good springy floor, and lightly padded walls. That being so, the ballroom had largely been off of Theo’s screens until yesterday, when work crews appeared and began hanging draperies on the rods along the walls, creating small private spaces where those who didn’t care to dance could talk with friends, or be alone out of the crowd for a few minutes.
And the ballroom did contain a crowd. She’d arrived promptly, escorted by Anthora and Ren Zel, only to find that two dozen guests had already been admitted.
“Surebleak society is eager to embrace us,” Ren Zel said so softly that Theo wasn’t certain that he meant it as a joke.
“Theo, from this point, we two must go forth as hosts,” Anthora murmured. “Will you accompany us, and welcome the House’s guests?”
“I’m a guest myself,” she’d pointed out, with a sudden longing to be back in the upstairs apartment that had become familiar and comfortable over the last few
days. “I told Padi and Quin I’d wait for them,” she added, which was perfectly true.
“Then we will take our leave for the moment,” Anthora said.
Ren Zel gave her one of his quiet smiles.
“Please, do not deprive us of your company for long,” he said. “I very much hope to dance with you.”
There wasn’t much dancing going on at the moment. Mostly people were milling around, talking to each other, or just staring about the room, like the pretty curtains and the flowers and the refreshment table set over in its own alcove were all artifacts from another world.
. . . which, she thought abruptly, they were.
Unsettled, she stood at her vantage and watched the room. Occasionally, she’d see Anthora, or the flutter of Natesa’s scarves, but almost everybody else in the room was taller than her—there! Shan had just entered the room from somewhere in the back, and was talking to a man in what looked to be a lab coat, while Priscilla walked deeper into the room, catching the arm of a lady in a handsome crimson vest, like they were old friends.
On average, Theo thought, the House’s guests were shabbier than the family. She wondered if she was the only one who noticed that, or if some of the guests did and it made them feel inferior. And if it did make them feel inferior, had that been Val Con’s intent? Quin and Padi had said that the dance was to show Clan Korval’s commitment to Surebleak and to their contract, but Quin and Padi were kids. They might not have the whole story. Val Con did things in layers. The top layer of this party might really be to show the Bosses of Surebleak that Clan Korval was committed to the contract to hold the Port Road open.
The second, third, and—who knew?—fourth layers were probably about other things entirely.
What would they be? she wondered, absently watching the crowd. Across the room, a tow-headed man wearing steel-rimmed eyeglasses stopped to talk to Pat Rin.
Could one layer of intended message be We’re stronger than you are? Theo wondered. That could also make the Bosses feel inferior, but in a way that might increase the safety of Clan Korval, if the guests took away the idea that the House and those in it were protected in ways they couldn’t hope to subvert.
Speaking of which, there was Nelirikk, Miri’s aide, who had been so busy on the Road that she’d only seen him once since their first meeting. He was strolling around the edge of the room, like he was looking for one person in particular.
“Good evening, Theo. Does the entertainment not amuse you?”
A voice familiar to her lifelong, and she couldn’t have said at the moment if she heard it now with trepidation or pleasure.
She turned, saw at a glance that the sharp-faced gentleman in formal evening clothes was indeed Father, smiled, and shook her head.
He paused, one eyebrow up. “Am I denied?”
Back on Delgado, before Daav yos’Phelium and Aelliana Caylon had entered her life and made one of the bedrocks of the universe uncertain, that question would have been a joke.
This evening . . . Father’s voice was absolutely neutral, and he stood as if he were poised to step away.
“Not denied,” she said, careful in her turn. “I was . . . amazed at myself, for being able to tell that I was speaking to, to my father. And that I accept that you could have been someone else.”
“Ah.” He stepped to her side. “Pilots may see any number of odd and unexplainable things port to port,” he commented. “Best to begin cultivating a certain ennui at home, where one’s kin can assist you at need.”
“However, as we are on the subject of someone else,” he continued, glancing past her to the room, before meeting her eyes, “Aelliana begs me to inform you that she believes what you are seeing is not a new system of Jump, but a much finer control of standard Jump than has been previously observed. She would, at some time agreeable to yourself and to Bechimo, like to examine the drive settings. In the meanwhile, I believe she is designing her own model.”
“It was very good of her to take the time,” Theo said. She hesitated, but, after all, Father was acting as if Scholar Caylon were in another room of the house, and had asked him to carry a message. Therefore . . .
“Please thank her for . . . the gift of her expertise.”
Father inclined his head. “I will do so. Your cousins, may I say, have had an influence. Now, if we may return to my original question—how is it that I find you dawdling in a corner rather than availing yourself of the entertainment?”
“I was watching the people for entertainment, and waiting for Padi and Quin,” Theo told him. “I was also trying to figure out why Val Con is doing this.”
“Did he not say? To assure the Bosses—”
“—that Clan Korval would honor the contract to hold the Port Road,” Theo finished. “He did say that. He also told me that he wished I would come to the house instead of staying on Port because I would be better protected here. And he came on-board when Bechimo didn’t want to have anything to do with anybody named yos’Phelium and he won the argument about whether I should come to the house before it became an argument by putting Bechimo in touch with Jeeves.”
Father raised an eyebrow. “You provide these examples to demonstrate that your brother has methods?”
Theo eyed him. “Aunt Ella used to say that you always got your way.”
“Being fond of hyperbole, I fear that Ella may have overstated the case. Matters did not always fall out as I wished.”
“But you tried to manage it so they did.”
“Certainly. Why should my comfort not count? However, as delm, I believe that Val Con has a scope denied to mere senior faculty.”
Theo shook her head again, and looked out over the room. She saw Lady Kareen moving among the guests, and Luken bel’Tarda, along with several people bearing trays of glasses or of little plates.
“Where are Val Con and Miri?”
“In the entrance hall, greeting the House’s guests, I should think. May I fetch you a glass of wine before I wade into the crush to do my duty?”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“You are very welcome. I hope you will not tarry on the edges all evening.”
“If there’s ever music, Pat Rin and Ren Zel have both said they’d like a dance.”
“That’s put me on my mettle! Will you save a dance for me, Daughter?”
She blinked, tears suddenly and unaccountably pricking her eyes.
“Yes,” she said, and gave him what she hoped was a firm smile. “I’d like that.”
- - - - -
“Congratulations, Lady yos’Phelium, on a splendid crush.”
Miri saw the ripple that signaled a joke inside her head, and squinted at her lifemate.
“That’s supposed to be mean something, is it?”
He smiled and offered his arm, which she was only too grateful to take.
“To have one’s entertainment declared a crush by one of the Acknowledged Hostesses of Liad was to be assured that in future everyone would flock to your parties.”
“Good thing we’re not on Liad, then, ain’t it, and no Acknowledged Hostesses on hand.”
“It is for a number a reasons good that we are no longer of Liad, I agree. As for our opportunity to gain the approbation of an expert—there you are out. Aunt Kareen, after all, ranked as one of the Hostesses.”
“Why don’t that surprise me? Should I go ask her opinion?”
“No need. I am certain that she will give it freely on the morrow.”
Miri sighed, gently, and again, as the first strains of music lilted down the hall.
“So, we lead the first dance?”
Val Con looked down at her.
“If you are willing, a few steps, then we will find you a place to sit where you may survey the merriment and be admired for your beauty and wit.”
Miri snorted. “Regular art object, that’s me.”
Abruptly, he changed course, steering them to the side of the hall. She leaned against the wall and looked u
p into his face.
“Cha’trez . . .” he murmured, and she shivered with the intensity of his concern. “Have Nelirikk—.”
“He’s on security.”
“Thus keeping you secure falls within his duty.”
They’d been through this. It wasn’t like she wasn’t worried, too, with him roaming the crowd, and the pretty white shirt not so much to have between himself and tragedy. But—
“They been after things, not people. Been real careful not to hurt people, ain’t that how we read it?”
Val Con sighed.
“We did.”
“So, we play it like we said, and see what happens. I’ll be extra eyes from the side floor. Trust me to sing out, too, if something looks funny.”
“I have no more certain trust.”
The pure thrust of truth that came with that was enough to take her breath.
“The question before us,” he continued, joking, now, “is whether you trust me to lead you in the volentra.”
She grinned.
“Sure, let’s go show ’em how it’s done.”
THIRTY-THREE
History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado
“But . . . how long will you be gone?” Ella put her cup down and frowned across the desk at Kamele.
“The Board approved an entire academic year,” Kamele answered. “Starting at the end of the current year.” She paused, raised her cup, remembered that it was machine coffee and lowered the cup without drinking. “I may need more time, of course, but a year is a good beginning.”
“More time? Kamele—where, precisely, are you going?”
Kamele sighed. Ella ben Suzan was her oldest friend. They had been students together, shared a toy-sized apartment on the outer quads as newly-robed scholar-instructors; shared everything, really, until Kamele had taken Jen Sar as her onagrata.
“I’m going to Surebleak,” she told Ella. “It’s in the Daiellen Sector.”
“Is it?” Ella tapped her mumu and transferred her frown to the screen.
