Scouts Progress

by Sharon Lee

  "Oh." She sipped tea, frowning slightly at the floor-plates.

  "That was clever of him," she said eventually. "I had tried, you know, to find their surnames, but I don't expect I was very subtle." Her frown deepened and she raised doubtful eyes to his.

  "Do you think we—do you think we did well?" she asked, leaning forward.

  Daav raised an eyebrow, caught by her intensity. "Do you think we did not?"

  "I—am not certain," she said hesitantly, frowning once more at the flooring. "It had seemed—they were hungry and—and compelled toward thievery—and so young." She glanced up, tawny brows drawn. "I do not—you spoke as if it—the Low Port—as if it were dreadfully dangerous. . ."

  "It is," he assured her, with utter sincerity, "dreadfully dangerous."

  "Yes! And so it seems that we must have done well, to have caught them away from danger and returned them to safety—and—to kin. Yet. . ."

  "Yet?" he prompted softly, when a minute had passed and she said nothing more.

  She came to her feet all at once, leaving her mug behind in the arm-slot, and paced to the center of the cabin. There, she spun to face him, fingers twisting and twining til he thought she might never unknot them.

  "They left," she said. "They said that they had left because the time was coming when they might be eligible for—for marriage. Neither wished to be married to any other. They spoke to their delm of their desire to be always together, but he was not—not disposed to hear them as more than children. They spoke to him again on the matter, and he was abrupt, saying consanguinity was too near. They went a third time, bearing gene-charts which showed them unlikely of producing a defective. . ." She faltered.

  Daav set his cup aside and straightened in his chair. "Their delm spoke of separating them so they might learn to deal with other folk."

  "Yes." She bit her lip. "Yes, of course he did. How could he not? To lose the possibility of liaison marriage from two of the younger—he must look to his clan's whole good. I do not fault him—he spoke as he must. But—" She paused; plunged ahead.

  "I—I don't pretend to know a great deal about—and of course marriage is—extremely—distasteful—"

  "Is it?"

  "Yes—and only think how much more distasteful when there is one you—prefer—above all others—I pity them from my heart and wish—I wish we had not stopped to play!"

  "For that I shall bear the blame. They looked in desperate case and unlikely to ask for aid. My whole thought had been to force aid upon them—at least as little as a meal." He paused. "Does their delm still speak of separation?"

  She sighed. "It is—under negotiation. A trial separation, to determine the—the depth of their devotion. Sed Ric—Sed Ric speaks of being apprenticed to a cousin on an Outworld, so that Yolan may finish her pilot's study at home."

  "Ah. And Yolan?"

  "She cries," Aelliana said, shoulders slumping. "Cries and looks at him—I cannot tell you how she looks at him." She frowned at the floor.

  "What else may their delm do? They are assets of the clan, to be used, as all are used, for the good of all."

  "So the Code teaches us," Daav said rather dryly. He tipped his head, considering her downturned face.

  "Is marriage—of course—so very distasteful?" he wondered softly.

  She glanced up, mouth hard. "I do not know that it must be," she said with precision. "My own—but that was many years ago."

  "From the distance of your exalted age," he said lightly, misliking the tightness of her muscles and the way she stood there, tensed for a blow.

  She drew herself up, eyes wide. "Next relumma, I shall have twenty-seven Standard Years," she said sharply. "I was married the day after my sixteenth name day."

  Too young. Far too young, Daav thought, for one such as Aelliana. Quivering with something between pity and outrage, he began a seated bow of apology—was arrested by her raised hand.

  "I had not meant to snap at you, Daav. It is true that I have—limited—knowledge. Voni—my eldest sister—marries often and seems quite content."

  Marries often, he thought wryly, recalling the drab street and moldering clanhouse in which she lived. Contract marriage was an economic necessity for some clans, true enough. Though in a house with several children of marriageable age—

  "You have only married once?"

  She inclined her head with brittle care. "It was sufficient." She sighed then, and showed him a palm, as if she wished somehow to make amends for his rudeness. "The clan has the care of my daughter."

  She spoke with neither warmth nor interest of her child, as if—

  "Ride the Luck!" The radio blared and they both jumped. Aelliana flashed forward and slapped the toggle.

  "Caylon here."

  "Acknowledge filed plan and begin descent," Tower directed. "There is traffic waiting behind you."

  "Yes," said Aelliana, glancing at the screen and verifying the equations in her head. "Flight plan acknowledged, descent begins on my mark." She turned her head. Daav was strapped in at his station, fingers dancing over the board. He glanced up, dark eyes bright, and gave her the Scout's go-sign.

  "Mark."

  IT WAS A SOLEMN CREW congregated before the teapot. Jon sat astride his usual stool, Trilla on his right hand, Clonak on his left, Patch lying alert before all.

  The door cycled and a tall shadow followed a shorter into the bay. They came forward a few steps, then Aelliana faltered—stopped, face showing pale and wary. Daav paused just behind her left shoulder, eyebrows well up.

  "The pair of you," Jon said with a sigh. "Come here, math teacher."

  She glanced over her shoulder, up into Daav's face, tension showing in all her muscles. He touched her arm, smiled; she took a deep, shaky breath and went forward.

  Directly before Jon's stool, she stopped, hands folded before her, her tall co-pilot at her side.

  "Master dea'Cort."

  "Hah. I suppose you know what you did today, with that display around the tidal effect?"

  She licked her lips, but kept her eyes steady on his. The pulse at the base of her throat trembled like a bird.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Yes sir, is it? Well, then, tell me."

  "Yes, sir." She gulped air. "We framed and tried a piloting addendum under stringent field conditions. The maneuver has tested successfully and I suspect subsequent testings and refinements as the equation is understood and tuned."

  "Invented a whole new sentence in the language of local lift," Clonak intoned.

  Her chin came up. "If you like."

  "Oh, I do like," he assured her, with a flash of his usual deviltry. "Very, very much."

  "Pipe down," Jon directed, and lifted a hand, beckoning. "Closer, please, math teacher. I'm too old a dog to bite you."

  Doubt showed at that, but she came forward, Daav still at her side, his hand near her elbow, should she have need of support.

  Jon turned his palm up. "Right hand, please."

  She lay her palm lightly against his. The ancient silver puzzle-ring flashed, as if with defiance. Jon touched it with a reverent fingertip. "Where did you get this?" he asked gently.

  "My grandmother left it me," she answered in the same tone, "when she died."

  "So. This is fitting, then, since I have it from my grandmother." He reached into his belt and brought it forth.

  It sparkled like a nebula: Big, gaudy, garish bit of trumpery. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamond—every one first cut—set in a platinum band meant to cover a finger knuckle-to-knuckle. Jon held it up, let them all see the flash and the wonder of it. Three of them knew what it was. He heard Daav draw a breath.

  "This," Jon said, bringing the ring before Aelliana's wide eyes, "is what pilots wore in the long-ago when they took their Jumpships out to the edge. It was used as a bond of word, as collateral for cargo, as earnest for repairs. A pilot always came back for her ring, that was the wisdom, and most often it was true." He smiled.

  "I had this from my mother, who
had it from hers, who had it from her father—back more generations than even you can count. It returned to me with my son's body. It's always been worn by a binjali pilot. Favor me, by wearing it now."

  For a moment, he thought even so little was too much. Her face blanched to beige, but the eyes—the eyes were beyond brilliant.

  She inclined her head, with full respect.

  "You do me great honor," she said, voice husking and solemn. "I shall wear it—with joy."

  "So." He felt a sweep of pride in her—in the person she allowed herself to become. Tears pricked at his eyes and he slid the old ring onto second finger of her right hand. It seated as if it had been made for her and Jon smiled. He had guessed well, he congratulated himself, in telling the jeweler the new size.

  He took his hand from under hers, leaned back on his stool.

  From his right, Trilla cheered, joined a moment later by Clonak. Daav lay a quiet hand on her shoulder and smiled when she turned her face up to his. Patch rose and stretched and stropped once against her legs before moving off on more urgent business.

  "And now," Clonak announced, leaping to his feet and stretching his hands high over his head, "we celebrate!"

  Chapter Thirty

  A Healer is one who may look into the heart and mind of one who is in pain, soothe the pain and restore the sufferer to joy.

  —From The Preamble

  To The Healer's Guide

  PILOTS LINED UP to meet her; Daav murmured their names in her ear as they bowed: "Hela. Kad Vyr. Mordrid. Nasi."

  Aelliana returned every bow, repeating each name in an effort to fix it in memory with the appropriate face.

  "Illiopa, Pet Ram, Abi Tod—" The line was coming to an end at last, but Aelliana greatly feared that she had lost some names entirely, and muddled others.

  "Frad," Daav murmured on a rather different note. Aelliana shook herself and applied special attention to Pilot Frad.

  A bland-faced man nearly as tall as Daav, he bowed respect, coupled with a hand-spelt 'binjali'. Straightening, he reached out to grip Daav's shoulder and grinned.

  "Old friend."

  Daav returned grip and grin. "When did you get in?"

  "Just in time to catch the most amazing lift I've seen in my poor career, from the vantage of Scout Station."

  "Always in the luck."

  "Hah!" Frad turned to Aelliana. "Take advice, pilot, and demand the Port Master give you a tenth of the profit she'll realize from selling that tape."

  She blinked at him. "Tape?"

  "Tried to get a copy myself, but the lines were backed up to next Trilsday. Couple of bars ago I heard a Terran captain offering twenty cantra hard for the first copy reaches his hands before local midnight—" He grinned. "Wants to use it for crew training!"

  Aelliana looked to Daav, eyes wide. "He's joking," she suggested, uncertainly.

  Daav's lips quirked. "Yes, but it doesn't at all seem like Frad's sort of joke."

  "Not a bit of it," that gentleman assured her with utmost gravity. "Given to making pies into the beds of my comrades." He sighed, bland face suffused with sorrow. "Very low sense of humor."

  Aelliana chuckled, Frad's name was called by someone across the room and he moved off, raising light fingertips to Daav's cheek in the moment before he was gone.

  The small gesture of tenderness awoke an appalling twist of emotion in Aelliana's chest. By custom and by Code, she should have felt shock. That two who were not kin should share such intimacy—to show their depravity in so public a place—It was beyond the pale. If she were Voni, she might well have fainted.

  By Code, she should now distance herself from Daav, her surname-less co-pilot, that his corruption not sully her melant'i.

  Failing of the Code, she lifted her eyes to find his waiting, quizzical and—wary.

  Wary—awaiting her censure. It hurt—astonishingly—that he should think her capable—and it was not shock she felt, Aelliana owned in a rush of self-truth, but jealousy, that Frad should be so dear to him.

  She smiled and saw the wariness melt.

  "Frad was a member of my team," he told her. "The four of us went through Academy together—Frad, Olwen, Clonak and I."

  "There you are!" That was Clonak, wading through the crush of Scouts, pilots and hanger-ons that clogged Apel's tiny wine-room. "Jon says it's time to move and let this rabble celebrate on their own. They've made their bows, now they want to talk board."

  "True enough," Daav allowed. "Where does Jon want us to go, I wonder?"

  "Kinchail's," Clonak said. "Meet us. I'll get Frad." He was gone, melting effortlessly into the crowd.

  Daav look down at her from dancing dark eyes.

  "Hungry, pilot?"

  "Yes!" Aelliana said in surprise and reached out to take his hand.

  THEY SAT SEVEN TO dinner in the comfort of comrades: Jon, Apel, Frad, Trilla, Clonak, Daav, and Aelliana, with Jon at the top of the table and Aelliana between him and Daav.

  It was a merry meal, replete with wine and chatter and dish after dish of delicious things, all ordered by Mistress Apel and shared 'round the table.

  The last platter having been taken away, Clonak and Frad embarked on a risque joke contest, into which Trilla occasionally threw a laconic one-liner. Apel sat quietly between Jon and Frad, sipping her wine and dividing her attention between the band, setting up in the corner opposite, and the entrance way. Jon and Daav were talking quietly.

  "A grand, dangerous work, young captain. Happens Liad isn't ripe for hearing it."

  "Liad is not altogether happy," Daav admitted, twirling his glass between long, clever fingers. Fascinated, Aelliana watched his hand, struck once more by the ring-marked, empty finger. It occurred to her to wonder if Daav himself had not fallen aside trouble within his own clan, that stripped him of rank-ring and made him eager to aid a pair of clanless pirates.

  "Still," Daav said, "Liad must have heard it, soon or late. Truth will be told, sink it as deep as you may."

  "We're for company," Apel commented as a drift of leather jackets came through the door. Across the room, the band struck its first notes.

  "Music!" Clonak exclaimed, cutting himself off in mid-joke. He bounced to his feet and made one of his extravagant bows.

  "Dance with me, peerless goddess."

  She stared up at him, feeling Daav's warmth beside her, and the weight of his sudden attention.

  "I don't know how to dance," she told Clonak as the band swung into its first number.

  "Of course you know how to dance! What has Trilla been teaching you this age?"

  "I—"

  "We'll show you," Trilla said, pushing back her chair and jerking her head at Frad. "Drafted, mapman."

  "Not bad," Frad commented, coming to his feet. "A trifle obvious, but not bad."

  Trilla laughed and marched ahead. Aelliana looked up into Clonak's taffy eyes and sighed.

  "All right—but no nonsense!"

  "Nonsense?" He opened his eyes wide. "When have I ever done less than cherish you?"

  "Oh. . ." Aelliana stood, shaking her head at him in Terran fashion. "You are quite ridiculous," she said severely.

  "But sincere," Clonak replied, with an evil grin. Taking her arm, he led her out onto the floor.

  Learning to dance required as much concentration as learning menfri'at. As with the defense system, it was crucial to be aware of the movements and potential movements of one's opponent and to respond correctly. It was made more difficult than menfri'at, in Aelliana's opinion, by there being only one correct response—which must be made within the arbitrary rhythm of the music.

  Her field of concentration was narrowed to Clonak's body, her own, the music, and the absolute necessity of performing perfectly. She was beginning to sweat with the strain of it, when an unexpected element entered the dance.

  "My turn," Daav said calmly and Clonak released her with a preposterous sigh.

  Aelliana stood staring up at him, abruptly aware of the others all about—there,
Jon and Apel; Frad and a redhead in Scout leather; Trilla with two partners, an arm around the waist of each. . .

  "Will you dance with me, Aelliana? Or shall I take you back to the table and give you some wine?"

  "Dancing is—rather—difficult," she managed, moving closer to him and laying a hand along his sleeve.

  "It needn't be," he returned and placed his free hand at her waist, as Clonak had done. "Indeed, dancing can be rather fun—believe me or don't." He grinned. "The first thing you must recall is that the one you dance with is your partner, not your opponent."

  She laughed up at him and stepped closer, into the imaginary box Trilla had said she must stay within when dancing. Carefully, she put her right hand on his left shoulder, slid her left hand down to engage his free hand.

  "Dance with me, then," she said. "Partner."

  He smiled at that, pleasure showing plain. The fingers at her waist tightened; Daav swayed—and they were dancing.

  It was absurdly easy. Her body moved without her conscious plan, indeed, it hardly seemed as if she moved at all, but that they did, with no separation so gross as he and she.

  The music ended. Aelliana was still, her hand on his shoulder, his at her waist, and they were two now, with she reluctant to stand away.

  "The musicians rest, Aelliana."

  Daav's voice sounded—odd. The dark eyes that looked down into hers seemed dazzled. Indeed, she felt herself dazzled, wanting only to stand there, touched and touching, and gazing into his eyes, until it was time to dance again.

  Abruptly, Daav cleared his throat, swayed back a step, breaking their gaze as his hand fell from her waist.

  "Let us return to the others."

  There were new faces around the table, and a shortage of chairs. Clonak came to his feet on the bounce. "We contrive," he announced, gesturing toward his empty place.

  "My captain to sit here."

  Daav lifted an eyebrow, but sat as he was bade.

  "So. And my goddess to sit here." A hand in the middle of her back propelled her forward, to land with surprised grace on Daav's knee.

  "Temporary quarters only," Clonak assured her, and struck a pose. "Chairs or death!" He bustled away, to general laughter.