by Sharon Lee
“Dreadfully noisy, I understand. May I suggest that we remove to another part of the house, and allow the servants to clean up?”
“Good idea,” Miri said. “I wanna get out of this dress. And Theo asked a question that deserves an answer.”
- - - - -
“. . . so we decided between us,” Val Con continued, “that we would expand the guest list to include not only the Bosses, but those at the next level down, who would have access to particular information, and so net our revolutionaries before they became more than a nuisance.”
They were in what appeared to be a game and reading room, judging by the comfortable shabbiness of the furniture. Miri had stepped behind a carved screen with the robe produced by a female pilot Theo had never seen before, who had left with promises of sending a tray.
Father had draped himself, boneless as a cat, on a flowered chaise, one leg stretched out, the other foot in its dancing slipper braced on the floor. Val Con had a hip on the wide arm of a double chair, one foot on the floor, the other on the chair’s rung. There was a smear of pink on his white shirt, from Miri’s hug. Either of them could be up, centered, and moving in less time than it would take to think about. The room was deep inside the house. They were as safe as possible, and not likely to see another attack. Despite that, and the fact that there were plenty of chairs available, Theo couldn’t have sat down for anything less than lift. She stood in the more or less center of the room, quivering with adrenaline; staring at her brother in disbelief.
“You deliberately invited dangerous people into your house, knowing that they might hurt somebody?”
“No, hey, Theo . . .” Miri came out from behind the screen, running her fingers through her unbraided hair. “They never tried to hurt anybody before this—and they had plenty of chances. They always stuck to breaking up toys and unbuilding things that had been built.” She curled into the double chair and patted Val Con companionably on the hip.
“We’re not complete newbies,” she went on. “We had people watching the room—you saw ’em. Plus, we had Anthora and Ren Zel and Shan and Priscilla looking into heads or at invisible strings or whatever it is the four of ’em look at. It should’ve been—I ain’t gonna say safe, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ such—but it shouldn’t have been dangerous.” She sighed.
“If you want it straight, what happened was my fault. Seeing me sitting there alone and what he might’ve read as vulnerable put a whole new idea in his head, is how I’m reading it. He could have a hostage—leverage—and it was just too good. If he’d thought it out, he’d’ve seen it wasn’t gonna do anything but increase his vulnerability, but he’s not a pro. Not by a long walk, he ain’t. If I’d’ve thought he was dangerous, I’d’ve killed him myself, instead of just throwing him, and scaring Val Con outta two nights’ sleep.”
Just throwing him, Theo thought, like grabbing a man twice her mass, who had come up on her from behind, and flipping him onto his back wasn’t anything much, while her lifemate across the room—
Theo turned back to Val Con. “I’ve never seen anybody move so fast. How—”
He shook his head. “Necessity. Also, this link we have is not always . . . convenient. I received Miri’s distress, as she received mine—”
“And so a feedback loop was born,” Father murmured from his comfortable lounge on the chaise.
“Yeah,” Miri said. “We ain’t good at this yet.”
Father laughed.
Theo spun, temper sparking. “You think this is funny?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Acquit me—the crimson sleeve was not comic in any way. However, the naïve supposition that one will become proficient . . .” He inclined his head in Miri’s direction. “That has a certain humorous value.”
“But you agree with what they did?” Theo persisted, even as she wondered why she was angry at Father. “You knew about this?”
“Certainly, I knew about the general sabotage, and one only needs to take a walk in the city to understand that the arrival of offworlders—of so many offworlders—has awakened a certain amount of dismay among the indigenous population. As the party was already in place—initially for that first level reason you were wondering after earlier, Theo—it made sense to do exactly what was done: expand both the guest list and security and try to isolate the motivating agent, and his associates, if any, in controlled conditions. I might well have done the same thing, noting that none of the House is an idiot.”
“We really were having a party to show the home folk that we’re serious about the contract and about Surebleak,” Miri said. “And Thera Kalhoon—you danced with her, Theo—”
“I remember,” she said shortly, recalling the cheerful lady who had danced pretty good, though she wouldn’t ever be a pilot.
“Right. First thing outta Thera’s mouth almost when we met, was that people here need to remember how to be civil again, to meet and to be social and to work together. Civilized.”
“And,” Val Con murmured, “since this House has arguably just arrived from the most civilized planet in the galaxy, who better to lead the way?”
“Now, there sits a lad who has properly listened to the lessons of his aunt,” Father said. He waggled a languid finger in Val Con’s general direction.
“If I may, and speaking to Theo’s point—what has apparently not been put into place are the emergency drills, so that those of the House who were present would have known what to do in the case of just such an attack. As it went, it went well . . .”
“Better’n it could have,” Miri agreed. “Theo—I don’t think I said—good reactions; you did everything right. Didn’t show no weapons, but there wasn’t anybody there doubted that if they wanted to get to me, they was going to have to go through you—and that was gonna be a day and a half’s work.” She tipped her head. “I just wonder about one thing, though.”
Theo looked at her, trying to remember what moves she’d made, and if she could have possibly hurt someone without noticing—
“Hey, I said you did good, didn’t I?” Miri waved a hand. “No, what I wondered was—why you jumped the way you did.”
Worry melted into bafflement. “Why?” she repeated. “You’re pregnant.”
Miri blinked, which meant she’d said something wrong, Theo thought, but—
“Miri is not native to Delgado,” Father murmured into the quiet room. “You will need to unpack it for her, Theo.”
Right. Cultural norms—weren’t. She knew that.
“You’re pregnant,” she repeated, and took a breath. “On Delgado, a pregnant woman has—precedence in almost everything. The Safety Office will deploy someone to be with her, on request.”
Miri frowned slightly, apparently still working it out.
“So, I’m your brother’s wife, and pregnant, so—”
“You’re a pregnant woman in your own home!” Theo interrupted angrily. “A pregnant pilot carrying a daughter pilot!”
The anger flared and extinguished itself. Theo jammed her fist against her mouth, hearing the echo of what she’d just said—just shouted—knowing it was true. And not knowing how she knew.
Val Con and Father traded glances.
“It is an interesting Sight,” Father observed, “if slightly obscure.”
Val Con rose; Theo looked at him with trepidation, wondering what taboos she’d just broken.
“Gently,” he said, raising a hand in the pilot’s sign for peace. “Many of us have seen odd things. I only wonder—curiosity, merely—if you are able to explain how you came to that knowledge.”
“I can tell if someone’s a pilot by looking at them.” She cleared her throat. “That’s not so strange, is it? You’re a Master Pilot; can’t you tell if someone’s a pilot?”
“Often, yes, I can. But I wonder. If you were confronted with a group of people seated, hands folded, at a table, would you then be able to see the pilots among them?”
She nodded. “Yes, sure. I mean, it’s obvious, once you kn
ow what to look for.”
“And when,” came the question from the chaise, “did this ability to see pilots arise, if a father may inquire?”
She turned to look at him, feeling a spark of anger return.
“When I had knowingly met pilots.”
“Ah. Then that would have been approximately at the time of your trip to Melchiza with Kamele.”
“Right. Pilots think in certain ways—” She turned back to Val Con. “You can see it—it’s obvious, even sitting still! You could tell, yourself—you could!”
Gently, he signed, and, “Perhaps, if I watched their eyes, or considered their balance as they sat, I might produce results slightly higher than a mere guess. But to know, with complete surety, at a glance—and for an unborn child?” He shook his head, smiling slightly. “My eyes are not so keen.”
“The contention that pilots think in certain ways . . .” Father said. “That might be observed by someone with Sight, surely? Certain connections must be made, by one who has undergone training.”
“Perhaps so,” Val Con said, “though that begs the question of our daughter’s abilities, for surely she has not yet received her first lesson.”
“But—you’re a pilot,” Theo pointed out, “and Miri’s a pilot. It’s not a reach to assume that your child will be a pilot. And on Delgado”—she glanced at Miri, who gave her an encouraging grin—“on Delgado, all unborn are assumed to be daughters.”
“Of course,” Val Con said politely.
“There is, after all,” Father added, “Kareen.”
She looked at him. “Lady Kareen isn’t a pilot.”
“Yet, she was born of pilots,” Val Con said. “We do not always breed true.”
“So I might be wrong,” Theo said, and spun suddenly at the knock on the door.
“Dinner, I think,” Val Con murmured, but it was Father who rose from the chaise and went to open for the same female pilot and a male, non-pilot, helper, each bearing a tray.
“The table, if you please, gentles,” Val Con said. “We will serve ourselves.”
The trays disposed, they were alone again. Val Con moved to the table and began to fill a plate. Theo stood aside, not really hungry, not with all the . . . energy roiling in her belly, and felt a quiet presence at her elbow.
“Father.” She turned to look at him. “When were you going to tell me?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“When would it have been proper, Child of Delgado, for the onagrata of your mother to reveal himself as your gene donor and declare that he expected you to rise into a path scarcely discussed on the planet surface?”
Theo shook her head.
“But—after . . .”
“After, was—after. You asked my assistance with your math and I gave it. Had you asked Jen Sar Kiladi for details of your parentage beyond himself, that he would not have given you, for he had . . . willfully forgotten such things.”
She stared at him. “Father—”
“However,” he swept on, “you mustn’t think ill of him. Before—he did what he might, as little as it was, and giving the lie to Ella’s assertion of always gaining his own way.”
Val Con had taken the plate and a cup over to Miri and gone back to pour a cup of tea.
“The dance lessons,” Theo said. “I figured that out later. And the lace-making, too, when I was a littlie.”
“The string game?” Val Con looked over to them, green eyes bright.
“A variation,” Father said.
“Did you make lace, too?” Theo asked.
Val Con moved his shoulders. “There is a game that we teach our children—a string game; it teaches the ability to see space as a whole and as matrices, and imparts an understanding of the relationship between each.”
“A game.” Theo looked at him—a pilot who had grown up surrounded by pilots, taught from an early age, and honed to be a pilot.
“There would be games, wouldn’t there?” she said. “Math games, and coordination games—bowli ball—”
“Not,” Val Con said sharply, “for children. Bowli ball is for those who have learned what pain is, and who have their muscles and their reactions under control.”
“And your daughter,” Theo pursued, “she won’t have to fall down and not know why she’s so clumsy.”
“I fell down rather often myself when I was a child,” Val Con said, sipping his tea. “I could see, you know, what needed to be done, but my body was still too unformed to do my mind’s bidding.”
“And while adults may be vigilant, it is difficult for someone who is years past their first training to always comprehend what may be regarded, and regarded, pursued.”
“One more thing that must be said, while we are bringing you to terms with your destiny,” Val Con said. “Theo, you must realize and accept that the luck, as we call it, rides roughly around us. As you saw this evening.”
“And don’t,” Miri said suddenly, rising from her chair and bringing her barely diminished plate back to the tray, “don’t go believing that what happened was your fault—we invited it in, just like you said.”
She looked up at Val Con. “You ain’t eating.”
“Neither did you.”
“Then we’ll both be hungry. Time to go change, I’m thinking, and lead another dance.”
“I think you are correct.”
Miri nodded. “The two of you be smarter than us and at least have a snack, right? Then come on back to the ballroom and help us send up the first line dance. Gotta show our honest guests that everything’s fine.”
They left, hand in hand, leaving Theo looking at the tray and feeling very far from hungry.
“At least a piece of cheese and a cup of tea,” Father murmured. “To give you strength enough to dance.”
It was so like him that Theo laughed, and gasped, and suddenly turned to put her hand on his sleeve.
“Father!”
“Yes, Theo?”
“I love you,” she said.
His mouth tightened, and he put his hand over hers.
“I will try to be worthy of that, child.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Runcible System
Daglyte Seam
The strike at Korval’s heart had failed.
Worse, Korval had not killed the native chosen to immolate himself on the fires of political necessity. His capture intact meant the immediate departure of those of the Department who were known to him, and the strategic withdrawal of all agents of the Department on Surebleak.
Korval was on guard now. They would not lay themselves open in such a manner again.
Commander of Agents issued instructions regarding the retraining of the agent who had supervised the failed attempt.
One true strike was all that was required.
Well . . . they were not yet out of blades.
- - - - -
It must’ve been eighteen times now he’d had Jellianne’s tractor on the rack and it was starting to wear out its welcome. That it ran at all was a marvel; he’d seen more able machines sold for their scrap value on what had been “his” port, back on Liad. Not that he missed Liad, particularly, but it did give a body some perspective on Surebleak.
“Clarence!” that was Mack, yelling in from the doorway. Might be there was some flying to do. That would be welcome, and not only because it would get him out from underneath the blessed tractor.
“Somebody here to see ya!”
No, Clarence thought, putting his wrench down quiet in the tray, and considering that particular note in his boss’s voice. No, maybe nothing so welcome as flying. He didn’t think Mack would set him up, but Mack, hard, canny man that he was, couldn’t know, or see, everything. A man from outworld was bound to have friends and associates from outworld, and none of Mack’s business to know who they were, or which were more welcome than others.
Then there was the possibility—slight as it might be—that somebody’d cared enough about Sanella Thring to have mentioned her going missing
to somebody else. Not to say that he hadn’t made enemies all his own during his time working for the Juntavas. Man who didn’t make enemies wasn’t doing his job.
“You sleepin’ under there?” Mack yelled.
“Give an old man a minute,” he called back, fingers locating the palm gun on the tray.
Setting his foot against the floor, he pushed, none too energetically, and the creeper rolled leisurely out from under the tractor’s belly. He came up slow onto his feet; heard Mack walking away toward the crew room, nodded to himself and picked a towel up from the top of the tool cart.
Wiping his hands, he walked around the tractor, and stopped cold, staring at the woman waiting for him.
Just a slip of a thing she was, which his years among Liadens had taught him to discount entirely. If the too-big jacket was hers, she was fast, and tough, and stronger than she looked. There was something else, too, a familiarity that went deeper than a mere understanding of the breed. Something that teased his memory while she stared at him with the devil in her eye, a wispy cloud of yellow curls framing a pale, pointed face that was beginning to display a touch of irritation.
“Pardon,” he said, not letting go of the rag nor the gun. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t know you,” she answered, with emphasis, and it was the voice that did it, or maybe the unspoken dare that he just try to knock that chip off her shoulder, and see how far she could throw him.
“There it is—you’re Daav’s girl.”
The touch of irritation became an active frown. “Does everybody on this planet know who my father is?”
“Well, now; a good many’ll be knowing him, sure. He likes to move around the port and chat up the pilots. Not his job any more, no more’n it’s mine—but some habits’re hard to break. As for the rest of the world, I believe it was Himself’s plan that the family be known.” He gave her a smile, just in case she was of a mind to soften. She wasn’t.
“What’s your name then?” he asked. “And your business?”
