Scouts Progress

by Sharon Lee

  —Excerpted from

  Cantra yos'Phelium's

  Log Book

  IT WAS RAINING IN Solcintra Port.

  Aelliana ran through the downpour, less conscious of the wet than the joy that heated her blood, reducing Clan Mizel to a speck and Ran Eld Caylon to an infelicity born of a bad night's dreaming.

  Here in the wakeful world, she would soon meet her co-pilot at the foot of her ship's ramp, and Liad itself would be left behind, reduced to a mathematical necessity, one of many factors supporting an equation of flight.

  She reached The Luck's pad, raced 'round the curve to the end of the ramp—and all but cried aloud, her run shattered by dismay.

  There was no tall graceful figure awaiting her at the base of the ramp, rain-jewels glittering along leathered shoulders. The gantry was empty, from tarmac to hatch. Aelliana swallowed, shivering in the dismal downpour, and walked the rest of the way forward on joy-dead feet.

  To the left, a flicker of noiseless movement. Aelliana spun as Daav ducked out from beneath the ramp, leather collar turned up against the wet, long fingers dancing cheerfully.

  Relief hit in a giddy wave, rocking her into laughter as she shook sodden hair away from her face.

  "A very fine morning, to be sure!" She answered the silent greeting aloud. "I thought you had forgotten me!"

  "No, but I have an excellent memory," he said earnestly. "Even Jon allows me that much." He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping in an attitude of exaggerated remorse. "My woeful decadence is to blame for your distress and I humbly ask pardon."

  Giddy yet with the return of joy, Aelliana smiled and tipped her head, trying to read beyond the mischief in the black eyes and into the heart of the joke.

  In a moment she had given it up, glancing away from a gaze that seemed to read her all too easily, while remaining a cipher to her closest study.

  "Decadence?" she asked.

  "Well, you see," he said, slipping past her and ghosting up the ramp, "I would much rather be dry than wet."

  She choked on another laugh and followed him, pulling the keys up on their neck-chain and slipping it over her head. "I wonder that Master dea'Cort allows one so in love with comfort to work for him."

  "How could you not, when Master dea'Cort wonders as much himself? Often. And loudly."

  Almost she laughed again, but lost it in a tiny shiver of alarm. The landing was very thin and Daav, slim as he was, filled a significant percentage of the available space. She would need to practically lean against his chest to access the hatch panel.

  As if he felt her hesitation in his own muscles, Daav pivoted sideways on the ramp, arms outstretched, one hand gripping the rail, the other resting against the hull. He grinned and inclined his head.

  "Your shelter from the storm, pilot. Be quick, I beg you, else I will be wet!"

  She slid by, feeling his nearness like sunlight on her back, raised the shield and fingered the first key into place. The ID board came alive. She fed in her code and seated the second key. There was a muted click and the hatch began to rise.

  Aelliana pulled the keys free and turned carefully on the landing, inclining her head with a forced smile. "Quickly, before you are soaked."

  "Pilot first." Daav stayed where he was, one eyebrow askance. "I've been well drilled in protocol."

  Pilot first. Aelliana blinked as the words found home, then drew a deep breath and stepped into her ship, deliberately squaring her shoulders as she did.

  DAAV ENTERED THE ship; the outer hatch cycled and locked behind him.

  Before him, Aelliana hesitated on the edge of the inner hatch. He read in the set of her body an awareness that had nothing to do with wariness and saw, in one of the flashes of instinctive understanding characteristic of him, that Aelliana was poised on a precipice of change. Here and now, she was engaged in letting go of something past and potent and simultaneously reaching forth to grasp something other and infinitely precious.

  He took a careful breath, and remanded himself to utter stillness, that he not distract her in the midst of this chanciest of undertakings.

  That she reached toward claiming her own skills, her ship, her comrades, seemed likely. That his taking shelter beneath the ramp had precipitated this moment of change also seemed likely. Her dismay at discovering an empty ramp, and the giddy relief she showed at his appearance told the tale plainly. He wondered if she yet realized that she was speaking to him in Comrade.

  Within the frame of the inner hatchway, Aelliana shifted—turned.

  "Will you check the board while I go and dry myself?" she asked, as a comrade might well ask. She held out the ship keys on a link of short chain and long. Daav stepped forward and received them with a smile.

  "Indeed I will."

  "Thank you." She crossed the threshold into the pilot's chamber, moving left toward the companionway, wet garments clinging heavily, hinting at the shape they were meant to conceal. Daav went right, sorting the keys for the board—

  "Daav?"

  For the first time, his name: Intuition had not failed him. He turned, taking care to move gentle, and smiled.

  "Aelliana?"

  She came forward a few steps, hand outstretched, a silver gleam between the fingers.

  "I had—taken your hair-ring—last evening. . ."

  "Ah." He lifted a hand to touch his queue. "I have another, you see, and it seems you might put that one to good use. Keep it, of your kindness." He offered a grin. "Clonak may demand a rematch, you know."

  Her eyes took fire and her mouth curved, fingers closing tight around the paltry gift.

  "Thank you," she said again, and hesitated, head tipped to one side. "Clonak. Did Jon—"

  "No mortal wounds," he said cheerfully. "Clonak has a gift for irritation against which even Jon is not immune."

  Laughter sparkled across her face, gone in the next instant. She turned without another word and went down the companionway. After a moment, Daav went to the board and slid into the co-pilot's chair.

  THE THICK OVERSHIRT refused to give up its moisture.

  Aelliana, who had been simultaneously warmed and dried by the 'fresher in the pilot's cabin, fingered the sodden beige item uncertainly.

  The valet had done admirably by the rest of her clothing, depositing them in the out-bin pressed and smelling softly of jazmin.

  Liked everything binjali, the chel'Mara, she thought with a grudge of admiration as she pulled on black trousers, plain singlet and a white silk day-shirt trimmed with faded green ribbon. None of these garments was new, nor did they fit her well. Indeed, in the absence of the overshirt, the trousers required severe belt-pleating to keep them even indifferently moored by her waist. The shirt—a gift from Sinit on a name day long past—had wide sleeves pulled tight into green-trimmed cuffs, and a loose cut, though the silk would cling, here and there.

  But the overshirt, that was the thing. It was her custom always to wear this article of clothing; it was her armor, her huddling place, her quilted coat of invisibility.

  And it hung, like a dozen or so freshly caught fish, chilling her fingertips.

  Aelliana bit her lip. Even her boots had dried under the valet's persuasion, and been returned to her gleaming with polish, worn heels evened. That the one most necessary item should—

  "Tower gives us grace to lift, pilot." Daav's voice flowed out of the wallspeaker. "Pending receipt of course."

  Aelliana gasped and spun toward the speaker, her eye catching a flash of movement to her right.

  "I shall be—another moment," she managed and barely waited to hear his "Right" before spinning back to the valet, snatching open the hatch and stuffing the soggy shirt within.

  She chose 'ultra-dry' from the option list, slammed the hatch, and turned again, confronting the mirror.

  No lift-proof wonder, this, but a simple rectangle of polished metal, showing, at the moment, a painfully thin woman in baggy trousers and a shabby silk shirt, blast-dried hair snarled across her face.

&nbs
p; Aelliana snatched at her pocket, finger-combed the static-charged mass back from her face and clipped it firmly with Daav's hair-ring.

  The woman in the mirror hesitated a heartbeat longer, poised on the balls of her feet, thin body quivering, eyes wide and green in a gaunt, pale face.

  She inclined her head. "Pilot," she said quietly, and was gone.

  A MUG OF TEA STEAMED gently on the arm of her chair, keeping company with a cheese muffin. Daav, reclining in the co-pilot's place with his long legs thrust out before him, glanced up from finishing his own muffin, earring swinging.

  "I hope you don't mind cheese," he said apologetically. "I meant only to order my own, you know, and what must my fingers do but stutter on the key and the automat give out two!"

  Aelliana considered him thoughtfully.

  "I should like to see your fingers stutter," she decided after a moment.

  Daav grinned. "Alas, it happens all too often. Dreadfully clumsy."

  "No doubt even Jon will say so," she agreed gravely, slipping into her place. She picked up the cup and frowned into the reddish depths.

  "What is it about Scouts," she wondered, "that makes them so eager to feed one?"

  "Well, you see, we're trained to respect efficiency and to mend those things which hinder efficient work. Observation has shown that a person carrying significantly less than optimum body-weight functions at lowered efficiency. Such persons are subject to exhaustion, muddled thinking, and bouts of terror, which are not merely inefficient, but active threats to survival."

  Startled, she looked up and met a pair of sober black eyes.

  "A pilot keeps herself fit," she said, quoting from the guild-book.

  Daav inclined his head. "That," he agreed quietly. "Also it is the duty of the co-pilot to ensure the pilot's health—and the care of a comrade to answer need with aid."

  "I see." She put the teacup back on the broad arm of the chair and reached for the muffin. "I have been—long aside—from the world," she said, breaking the cake open and breathing in the cheesy aroma. "While I eat, will you tell me if you have formed any notion of how best to test the navcomp?"

  "Several," he said readily, "but you must tell me how much time you may spend."

  Aelliana glanced at the board clock and back to her co-pilot. "Twelve hours."

  "Ah," he said with a smile, "in that wise. . ."

  Chapter Nineteen

  A statistically significant number of Scouts are reported eklykt'i—unreturned—every Standard Year. While some undoubtedly fall prey to the omnipresent dangers of their duty, there is reason to believe that most have simply found a world that suits them better than the homeworld and have decided to stay.

  There are those who argue that Scouts who are eklykt'i are the most successful Scouts of all.

  —Excerpted from

  "All About the Liaden Scouts"

  LIAD HUNG IN HER THIRD screen, a glowing wizard's-ball caught fast in a thick net of traffic. Outyards Four, Five and Three, moored to the edge of the net, also showed, gratifyingly distant. All that remained between Ride the Luck and the beginning of Jump space was the hailing beacon—and Scout Station.

  Aelliana sighed.

  "Tired, pilot?"

  "Not at all," she returned, spinning in her chair to meet her co-pilot's smile. "I was merely thinking how—satisfying—it would be to continue our route out."

  "Eminently satisfying," Daav said, his smile going a little crooked, "and very tempting. Liad does grate upon one, from time to time." He extended the hand which bore the mark of the ring he did not wear and locked his board.

  Aelliana bit her lip, leaning over to lock her own board. "Have you been—retired—very long?" she asked, which was none of her concern at all.

  "Six years," Daav answered, as if it had been an entirely appropriate question. "I had been active for ten."

  "Clonak—Clonak calls you captain," she told him, as if this might have someway escaped his notice.

  Daav laughed. "Well, and Clonak's an odd creature, as even those who love him must own. It happens I had been his team leader, though I barely had such courtesy from him then. And," he added kindly, "before you sprain your tongue in an attempt not to ask the next perfectly logical question: Scout Captain, with a specialty in Cultural Genetics."

  Swiftly, she lifted her eyes to his. "I beg your pardon," she said, feeling heat wash along her cheeks. "I had been taught it impolite to inquire of—of—" She staggered to a halt, for 'stranger,' the word she had been about to utter, did not fit the cipher; nor did 'non-kin,' her other choice, strike closer. Indeed, she was more likely to receive care and accurate data from stranger-Daav than ever she might of Ran Eld.

  "All by the Code and very proper in its place," Daav said, coming smoothly to his feet. "The so-called polite world being its place. You have every right to ask of me, Aelliana. I am your co-pilot and your comrade. It is imperative that you trust me, as I might well be required to make a decision in your name. If you cannot trust me to act as you would, you had best know it quickly."

  She stared up at him for a long moment before rising with a sigh. "I venture to say that you would not in any case act as I would," she said slowly. "I would far rather trust your judgment than my own."

  "Then you are no pilot."

  She flinched, snapped straight, hands fisted at her sides. "I am a pilot!" she cried, as if it were wrenched from the core of her. "I will master Jump within the year!"

  Daav lifted an eyebrow. "If you will," he said with a cool and distant courtesy that put her forcefully in mind of Lady pel'Rula. "I must allow, however, that I have never known a Jump pilot who would place another's judgment above her own in any matter of her ship."

  She glared, her own voice echoing in memory's ear: I do not wish to hear that any of my students has died stupidly . . .

  She drew a careful breath.

  "Master pilot," she said. Daav inclined his head.

  "Pilot?"

  "I strive to be an apt pupil," Aelliana said formally, and bowed as one of her students might bow to her: Respect and honor to the instructor. "I have been many years aside the world. This information is not offered to excuse ineptitude, but to aid the instructor's judgment. It may be I am unworthy of the instructor's notice. Certainly, I have much to learn."

  "Though nothing to learn at all in the science of delivering a devastating setdown!" Both of Daav's eyebrows were up. He flung out that curiously unringed hand, fingers slightly curled. "Cry friends, Aelliana, do! I swear not to come the lordling."

  She blinked at him, baffled. "But—you are entirely correct," she stammered. "I must learn all a pilot's melant'i, and that quickly. Else how shall it be when I am beyond Liaden space and none but myself to consult? I read of all manner of strange custom in out-space. When my ship and myself are ranged against such and the decision must always be first to preserve the ship—" She slammed to a stop, heart pounding.

  "Your ship is your life," Daav said softly, and with the air of quoting someone.

  "Yes." She let out a shaky breath. "Yes, exactly so."

  "Which is why the chel'Mara is a fool." He smiled, tipping his head so the silver earring spun sparkling in the cabin's light. "Shall you cry friends, Aelliana, or am I in blackest disgrace?" The long fingers beckoned gently.

  She hesitated, feeling the familiar clutch of fear in the pit of her belly. A test . . . And once again, she thought, clammy fingers twisting together as she stared at that beckoning hand, Daav was right. Who was she to claim for herself the courage necessary to leave clan, kin and homeworld—the boldness to survive among strange custom—when she dared not even reach out her hand to touch the hand of her comrade?

  It was difficult. To her screaming, hard-won instincts, it required an entire day to step closer, a twelveday to raise her hand, another to hold it forth, a entire relumma to close her fingers around his and feel the warm, answering pressure, by the end of which quarter-year she was trembling in every muscle and her legs barely firm
enough to hold her.

  "Reprieved!" Daav's voice sounded gaily. He pivoted smoothly, drawing her with him as he moved across the chamber. "I expect you'd like some lunch before we proceed."

  "Lunch?" Aelliana repeated. She shook herself and drew a ragged breath, noting with something like panic that she was clutching Daav's hand with a force that hurt her own. "Thank you, but I—don't believe I am hungry."

  "Yes," he said placidly, "I know."

  It was not until he had seated her in the tiny canteen and gently reclaimed his hand in order to ply the menuboard that a certain ominous thought struck her.

  "Daav?"

  He turned his head. "Yes."

  "I—" she stared down at her tightly-folded hands, her eyes following the intricacies of the puzzle ring, round and round. She bit her lip. "Are you a Healer?"

  "Ah." He left the board and leaned across the little table, laying one hand over both of hers. He smiled as her eyes leapt to meet his.

  "My empathy rating is—high," he said softly, "but I am not a Healer." He looked closely into her eyes, his own serious. "Shall I fetch you a Healer, Aelliana?"

  It was an appropriate offer, from a comrade. Aelliana blinked against tears, tore her gaze away.

  "Thank you, no. It is—I believe it is—too late—by many—years. I had only wondered—it seemed you are so—"

  "Meddlesome," Daav said lightly, standing away with a smile. "It's a sad case, but—Scouts, you know. Shall you have soup with your salad or merely a roll?"

  She stared at his back, torn between frustration and laughter. "Only a roll, of your goodness."

  There was, of course, no hope that she would merely receive a roll and a cup of tea, and it was with no real surprise that Aelliana sat some moments later considering a rather large salad, augmented by cheese and breadstick.

  Daav, who was having soup with his own salad, dug in with a will. Aelliana picked up her tongs.

  "How did you learn the silent tongue?"