Scouts Progress

by Sharon Lee

  Aelliana glanced up from her all-but-empty plate with a blink.

  "I teach Scouts," she said, with a slight smile, "and Scout minds—as you must know!—are very often bent on mischief. I learned it for survival, through observation." She moved her shoulders, denying his look of admiration. "When I finally came to realize that the finger-flickers among the class must be a language of some kind, it was only a short step to reading it—which is the extent of my skill."

  "You've never tried to speak so yourself?"

  "Oh, no," she said, glancing down at her plate and fingering her tongs. "I would be hopelessly clumsy, you know."

  "Having observed you at a piloting board, not to mention deep in a game of bowli ball," Daav said somewhat dryly, "I know nothing of the kind. It's a useful language—and staggeringly simple to learn. Much easier than Terran."

  "Which I must also master." Aelliana sighed, shoulders slumping. To capture first class, to become proficient in Terran, to acquire tolerance of exotic custom, to earn both funds and recommendations, all the while keeping ship and comrades hidden safe from Ran Eld's eye—

  "Have you only a year?" Daav asked and she started, so closely did he echo her thoughts, then relaxed, lips curving upward.

  "Very high," she commented, and moved her shoulders. "A year it must be. It may be necessary to give over the seminar."

  "Ah, no, that would be cruelty. If Liad is to lose you altogether, at least allow another class of Scouts the benefit of your knowledge."

  Extremely high in the empathy range, Aelliana thought, with sudden understanding. And augmented by all a Scout's observational skills. Small wonder he finds the polite world grates on him. She raised her eyes.

  "Do you know anything of a world called Desolate?"

  "Yes, and none of it good," Daav said bluntly. "If that is your destination, and the hope of your study, you would do far better to remain on Liad."

  "I had thought—some time ago—that I might go there," she said. "Before Ride the Luck. Plans have—altered. But I had wondered."

  "Hah." Daav finished off his tea and set the cup aside. "The World Room at Scout Academy is what you want. Apply to the commander for use-time."

  She hesitated. "Do you think—"

  "Your name is cantra at Academy, Aelliana," Daav said, pushing back his chair and gathering up the remains of his meal. "Jon had told you so."

  "So he had." She rose, gathered up her leavings and fed them to the disposer before turning back to her tall co-pilot.

  "I wonder," that gentleman said with the easy air she was beginning to recognize with trepidation, "if you might wish to have a taste of Jump."

  Her heart leaped, the calculations running, quicksilver, in her head. "The gravity well. . ."

  "A serious problem, were we to attempt full Jump. I'm suggesting Little Jump, or Smuggler's Ace, as my piloting instructor was used to call it. We barely phase out, skim atop hyperspace and return. In such a venture, the gravity well—"

  "The gravity well acts as anchor and catalyst—I see!" Aelliana interrupted, the figures flowing, bright and perfect, before her mind's eye. She looked hungrily into Daav's face.

  "Can we. . ."

  "Let us call Scout Station and clear it with them. However—no disgrace of your skill!—I will run first board."

  "Yes, of course," said Aelliana, and almost ran back to the pilot's chamber.

  SCOUT STATION GAVE ITS aye with cheery unsurprise, recommending them to "enjoy the bounce". Daav grinned and closed the outline—and then the mandatory open line.

  "No open lines in Jump," he murmured, fingers dancing along his instruments. "Your board to me, if you please."

  She assigned it with a pang, sighing as her screens went dark.

  "Patience, child," he chided, and before Aelliana could protest such address, her screens were live again, board-lights winking bright.

  "Your board is slaved to mine. Every toggle I trip, every bit of data I feed in—everything will be reflected there, for your interest. Well enough?"

  For her most intense interest! "Well enough," she agreed, eyes hungry on the tell-tales.

  Daav laughed. Across Aelliana's board lights brightened, darkened, flared, flicked; data strings like a river at thaw stormed across the pilot's net; navcomp held steady, steady, perfect to five digits. Scout Station passed from screen three to four to five, outline stretched by velocity, until it shot off the edge of screen seven and vanished as the warning beacon flowed into screen one, heading for two—

  The ship flinched, the screens went gray. Navcomp beeped and took itself off-line.

  "Jump achieved." Daav's voice was calm as always, but Aelliana thought she detected a thread of sheer, savage joy in that smooth weaving.

  At the bottom right corner of prime screen, red digits ticked time. One-minute-six, one-minute-nine, one-minute-twelve—The lights jigged manic across the board, data hurtled—one-minute-fifteen—

  Navcomp sang and came alive; ship's eyes opened, showing the diminished, ensnared globe of the homeworld. Aelliana bit back something woefully near a curse, hand moving to demand elucidation from maincomp. Nothing happened, of course, she was still slaved to the master board.

  "But—"

  "Smuggler's Ace, recall it?" He wasn't even trying to hide his exuberance. He grinned like a boy and opened the mandatory line with a flourish, letting in all the babble of the workaday universe.

  "How can we be—be—" She slammed to a halt, aware that she was not entirely certain where they were, excepting beyond range of Port and Tower, beyond Scout Station, beyond the beacon—

  "Ah, hyperspace!" Daav said gaily. "We don't go through, we go between. The gravity well gives a pretty boost, though brief."

  She glared at him, suspicion gathering, now that it was too late. "Where are we?" she demanded awfully.

  "My dreadful manners." His hands moved across his board, reassigning control to her.

  She blinked, snatched at the board, read the numbers and found herself not much enlightened. Irritably, she slapped maincomp up, demanding the filed record of their outward course—

  "I fear that won't be there," Daav said apologetically. "My cursed clumsiness."

  "You wiped the comp?" She stared at him in patent disbelief, while she recalled his fingers moving across the board. So swift, so—very—certain.

  He sighed dolefully. "Alas."

  "Another lesson, master pilot?"

  "You had," he pointed out, "indicated a need for accelerated study. Only consider, Aelliana, how rich this situation is in practical application."

  "Is it indeed?"

  "Oh, amazingly," he assured her, ignoring irony. "Why, by the time you've discovered where we are, calculated a return, and taken us home, you will be well on the way to losing provisional entirely."

  She eyed him, suspicion flowering into dread—or perhaps, anticipation. "I'm to take us home? Unaided?"

  Daav folded his arms elaborately across his chest. "Well, you don't think I'm taking us home, do you? I did my part. I got us here." He closed his eyes.

  Aelliana took a breath. "You are—" Words deserted her.

  "Despicable," Daav offered obligingly, not bothering to open his eyes.

  She let her breath out in a puff that might have been exasperation or laughter. Sharply, she cycled her chair, opened the board and set about the task of discovering just where, precisely, they were.

  Chapter Twenty

  It must be the ambition of every person of melant'i to mold individual character to the clan's necessity. The person of impeccable melant'i will have no goal, nor undertake any task, upon which the clan might have reason to frown.

  —Excerpted from the

  Liaden Code of Proper Conduct

  "YOUR LORDSHIP IS ALL grace, to bestir yourself to meet me at this hour." The red-haired man bowed profoundly.

  Ran Eld Caylon inclined his head haughtily and sat first, as befitted his rank. The red-haired man took the chair across.

 
; "Wine, Your Lordship?"

  "I thank you," Ran Eld said and took the glass of canary as it was poured, tasted it and sighed.

  Ran Eld Caylon was fond of fine things: Fine wine, fine jewelry, fine comrades. The man across the table was one of the latter class—or had been. Recently, however, San bel'Fasin had become a dead bore.

  "I trust Your Lordship enjoys his usual robust health?"

  Once again, Ran Eld inclined his head. "I am quite fit."

  "And Your Lordship's delightful sisters are likewise well?"

  The red-haired man had never met Ran Eld's sisters, though it had been his policy from the first to find them delightful.

  "My sisters are well," Ran Eld admitted, and assayed another sip.

  "And your honored mother, the delm—she is—of course!—in the best of good health?"

  "My mother blooms, I thank you."

  "Excellent, excellent! Then there will be no difficulty in calling upon her with my little matter."

  Ran Eld froze, wine glass halfway to his lips.

  "I beg your pardon."

  bel'Fasin moved his hands in gently. "Why, the insignificant matter of twenty cantra forwarded to Your Lordship last relumma. Certainly you recall it?"

  "Twenty cantra?" Ran Eld treated the red-haired man to his coldest stare. "You are mistaken. The amount owed is four."

  "Four cantra were originally lent," San bel'Fasin agreed urbanely. "At interest of twenty percent per twelve-day, plus penalties."

  "Penalties? What penalties?"

  "One hundred percent rolled over at the conclusion of each twelve-day unpaid," bel'Fasin said promptly, and met Ran Eld's glare with a glance so deathly chill the nadelm shivered. "Your Lordship signed a paper."

  So he had, and Aelliana's quarter-share had been destined to retire this particular debt of honor. But what must occur, Ran Eld thought furiously, except the Delm's Own Word had forced him to hand the sum to Aelliana and no way to lose another four cantra from the House's meager funds. . .

  "When might it be convenient for me to call upon your delm?" bel'Fasin asked courteously.

  Ran Eld set aside his glass, of a sudden sick of wine. Twenty cantra, gods . . .

  "There is no reason for you to call upon Mizel, friend bel'Fasin."

  "Alas, Your Lordship, there is every reason. Unless. . ."

  Ran Eld looked up, hope a painful crush of heart and lungs.

  "Unless?"

  "Perhaps Your Lordship would be willing to represent another case to your honored delm?"

  "What case?"

  bel'Fasin smiled and sipped his wine. Ran Eld grit his teeth and let the moment stretch, though it was torture to his screaming nerves.

  "Mizel owns a certain—leather manufactory, I believe?"

  Sood'ae Leather Works was the most profitable of Mizel's three manufactories. Alas, it was also the eldest of the clan's holdings and certain updates were sorely needed.

  Ran Eld inclined his head. "True."

  "Ah. Then I wonder if you might not be able to—bring your delm to see the—benefit—of a partner in that business."

  Sood'ae was freeheld, Ran Eld thought. The delm would never . . . He caught San bel'Fasin's cold eyes on him and took a deep breath.

  Twenty cantra, at twenty percent and one hundred percent penalty every . . .

  "I shall speak to Mizel," Ran Eld told the red-haired man with formal coolness. He picked up his glass and threw the rest of his wine down his throat.

  THEY WERE IN MID-PORT, between Virtual Arcade and the zoological museum. It was mid-evening and the byways were crowded with jostling strangers—Liadens, mostly, but with a mixing of Terrans, tall and loud in their clusters of comrades. Aelliana and Daav were holding hands, that they should not lose each other in the press.

  The problem set her up-space had, indeed, been rife with opportunity. Aelliana bested the problem, eventually, and earned not only her tutor's quiet praise, but a warm glow of pride in her own accomplishment. They were in mid-Port by way of celebration.

  To Aelliana, whose knowledge of Solcintra Port encompassed the ferry station, the monorail and Mechanic Street to the door of Binjali's, mid-Port was an unrelieved marvel. She craned into shop windows, marveled at street-corner playlets, and stared at passersby, the jangle of a dozen languages like wine for her ears.

  "Here." Daav tugged on her hand, charting a slantwise course from the edge of the walk inward, toward the shops lining the right. Perforce, Aelliana followed, trusting him to bring them to safe docking, then paused on the threshold of the shop he chose, her nose telling tales of exotic spices, hot bread and other delights.

  "More food?" she cried, hauling back on his hand.

  "Food!" His eyes sparkled like black diamonds, in-lit with delight. "You wrong me, pilot, and so I swear. As if I would guide you here for mere food!"

  It was so easy to laugh. Laughing, she let him tug her inside, to stand beside him in a long line until it was at last their turn at the counter.

  Daav saluted the grizzled counterman with a grin. "Pecha, of your goodness, old friend—and a pitcher of the house's best! This my comrade has never partaken of your specialty."

  The counterman grinned and rang in the order, though Aelliana saw no coin change hands.

  "Enjoy!" he recommended in badly-accented Liaden and waved a big hand, giving Aelliana a wink before he turned to the customer behind.

  "He's—" Aelliana began, as Daav guided across the crowded floor to a table against the rear wall.

  "Paol Goyemon," Daav said. He slid onto the bench seat at her right and gave her a lifted eyebrow. "You find him repulsive?"

  "Not at all. I hadn't known Terrans held shop in Port."

  "A cantra is a cantra, no matter who makes it—or pays it." He grinned. "A principle of economics that does much to sustain my faith in humankind."

  She chuckled, then sobered, slanting a look into his face. "Is it burdensome, being—world-bound?"

  Something flickered across his face, touched his eyes.

  "It is," he said slowly, "somewhat of a burden. It is the training, you understand. In making us fit for the universe, we are made unfit for Liad." He smiled, wryly. "It does not help, of course, that the polite world labels Scouts odd and holds us in mingled trepidation and dismay. 'Scout's eyes' they say, as if it were something of magic, rather than merely learning to see what stands before one."

  She frowned, groping after a certain thought. . ."There is Clonak, growing hair on his face—like a Terran. Liadens don't grow beards. Surely those who have never left Liad cannot be expected—"

  "Liadens," Daav broke in, "live in danger of losing the game to complacency. They think themselves the ultimate in civilization and scorn what is not written in the Code. The Code is all very well, but courtesy to difference has not been named a virtue. If—" He caught himself on a half-laugh and raised his hand, gesturing apology.

  "There, I promise not to rant."

  Before she could assure him that he was not even approaching one of Ran Eld's lectures, let alone a rant, the pecha and pitcher arrived.

  Pecha was flat round dough, spiced red sauce, vegetables, and cheese, baked until cheese and sauce bubbled, served on a hot stone. The dough was cut into six fat slices. One detached a slice from the circle of its fellows, balanced the treacherous wedge atop one's fingers—and ate.

  Aelliana followed Daav's example, imperfectly at first, gaining confidence with each bite. The flavor was strong, spicy enough to raise tears—delicious. The wine—sweet, red, glacier-cold, with citrus smiles floating in it—cooled the mouth and sharpened the appetite.

  "This is wonderful," Aelliana said, liberating her second slice. Daav smiled and raised his glass in silent salute.

  Too quickly, it was done. They lingered over the wine, side by side and backs comfortably braced against the wall, watching the crowd of diners ebb and change.

  "How did Clonak come to have a—mustache?" Aelliana wondered lazily.

  "We all have our
souvenirs." Daav's voice was equally lazy. He lifted a hand and touched his earring. "The tale of how Clonak came by his mustache is—alas!—not to be told for forty years, by order of the Scout Commander. What I can tell you is that he very badly wished to speak to someone who would not treat with a 'beardless boy,' as the phrase went. Clonak thus sought permission of his team-leader and then commended himself to the autodoc, rising much as you see him today." He paused, considering.

  "Slightly more demented," he said at last, sipping his wine. "I do believe age has mellowed him."

  "And yourself?" Aelliana wondered softly. Daav looked up, one brow askance.

  "Ah, but I have always been precisely as demented as you see me today!"

  She laughed and moved her head in the Terran negative he had taught her. "But I meant your earring," she said. "Surely that is a—a souvenir?"

  "So it is." He touched it once again, smile going slightly askew.

  "This certifies my place as a son in the tent of the Grandmother of the Tribe of Mun, whose name, we would say, is 'Rains-in-the-Desert,' though I rather think 'Rockflower' a closer fit." He paused for a sip of wine; reached 'round to finger his tail of hair.

  "This signifies that I am unmarried."

  Aelliana stirred, looking up into black eyes gone misty with remembering.

  "And when you marry?" she asked, meaning it for lighthearted, though it sounded utterly serious to her own ears.

  Daav smiled, wistfully, she thought. "A married hunter will wear his hair clipped close to his skull, of course. And he will have a second earring, that names his wife's tent. But until one has been chosen from among those who stand around the marriage fire and enters the tent of one's wife, the hair is worn thus."

  "Marriage fire. . ." Aelliana sighed and sipped at the last of her wine. "Did you—But you said you were unmarried."

  "Rockflower had determined I should stand around the fire at the next gathering of the tribes," he said, very softly. "My team came back for me before then."

  She looked up into his face. "You're—sorry?" she asked, tentatively, because it did seem there was sorrow shadowing his bright eyes.

  "Sorry?" He moved his shoulders. "I should have been a poor choice, for a woman of the Mun. Undergrown—and not—terribly—skilled with my spear. To choose such a one to provide for a new-made tent, where there likely would soon be children—" He shook his head, Terran-wise, drank off his wine and turned a full grin upon her.