Dragon Ship

by Sharon Lee

  Ricia Kergalen, the Assistant Senior Coordinating Secretary called to assist her, was due back any second now, or any minute now, or maybe that was any hour now. For the moment Theo sat on the raised dais in a chair of exquisite comfort, dressed in her good travel slacks and a pleasant shirt and her pilot’s jacket. Her well-worn, over large, second-hand pilot’s jacket, gift of and certification from Pilot Rig Tranza.

  In the Merchanter Secretary’s antechamber, Ricia had extended a hand for the jacket, murmuring, “May I put that aside for you?”—then snatched her hand back as if she’d reached toward open flame rather than good space leather.

  “Oh! You carry tools!” She bowed a non-Liaden kind of bow. “Welcome then, and follow me, if you please, Pilot, and we shall seat you appropriately for your wait.”

  Theo hadn’t seen whatever it was that Ricia Kergalen saw, but a pilot was rarely if ever separated from her jacket, so she nodded into a half bow, and followed Ricia past several apparent offices and waiting rooms, down a thin hall and a wider one, to this place, this dais in the center of this broad hallway, seven chairs upholstered all in creamy white, enclosed by a white ornamental railing, just three white-speckled steps above the white-stone floor. From her chair, Theo had an unimpeded view of the most spectacular naked-lady statue she had ever seen. The statue was five or six times Theo’s height, backed by the greens and flowers. She guessed it was carved or poured from some salt-and-pepper stone that glistened with an inner glow.

  Ricia had been easy enough to follow, an efficient walker with dancer writ across her demeanor and her stride, and a smile that seemed real if slightly troubled. Her hair was long, braided behind in two ropes that left an interesting view of very pretty neck and the intricate chainwork that supported the complex symbol she wore as necklace. Not a pilot, though she had very close to pilot and dancer grace, and with some other competences that Theo sensed rather than saw.

  “Please, Pilot Theo, if you will be kind enough to wait I shall send refreshments and make arrangements for a discussion of your needs.”

  Probably, Theo thought, sipping her juice, the passing women were pausing to admire the statue; surely, it was a delight to the eye, and the greens were such a relief in the world she seen from the train.

  The fruit drink had been delivered by a trio of serious youngsters who had stared at her in her jacket as if it were made of timonium, called her Mistress Theo, and poured carefully for her, laying out first an immaculate white cloth and placing the chalice on it with a bow to the statue, another to her, and a third to the pitcher.

  “Mistress Theo, it is good of you to visit with us, this day of any. Be welcome, enjoy your drink, and be pleased in the presence of the Goddess.”

  More bows after the set-piece, and off they’d gone, stopping at a distance they might’ve thought was discreet to peer back at her.

  The chalice was neutral to her touch; the drink was cold and tart. She was glad they’d brought the pitcher.

  More people passed by the dais. Worse, Theo was sure she’d seen at least two of them pass by before. And they were looking. Looking at her. The attention was making her nervous, just when she needed to be calm.

  A pilot has inner calm she reminded herself. More, she realized, that’s what Father really did when he didn’t want to be seen: he let his inner calm cloak him, as she’d been practicing the day before.

  Inner calm, she said to herself; I’m at peace with this world, and with this lady.

  She took time now to study the statue, to absorb its curves and textures. The lady was sensual, no doubt, with long hair blowing free in a nonexistent breeze, with hips able to guide and give, breasts capable of succor and seduction, arms and hands strong without being musclebound, looking both up and out toward some mystic necessity…

  Theo relaxed; the sounds of the hall receded, inner calm blanketed her. She looked at the statue’s feet, beautiful feet set firm upon the worlds, leading to supple dancer’s legs and…

  She heard steps then, hurrying toward her, and turned in her chair.

  Ricia Kergalen climbed the stairs, her face troubled, braids swinging, pendant clasped in one hand.

  “Lady, Pilot, I meant no disrespect, and your wait is over. There is no need for a Working here, I promise you! If you’ll kindly follow me, Zaneth Katrina will see you now, in the Senior Secretary’s office.”

  * * *

  The Senior Secretary was a large-boned woman with imperiously blonde hair caught in a thin silver headband, and falling long to her shoulder. She sat, not offering to rise, bare-armed in a robe of white. She wore several silver bracelets, a red fabric armband, and a pendant even more complex than Ricia’s fancy dangle. She sat in a chair probably not her own, holding a small glass ball in the palm of her hand, peering over it at Theo, blue eyes hooded. Theo wondered if the ball were a recording device.

  The chair the Secretary occupied was too prosaic for a woman of such means and title, as anyone with a background in Delgado’s complex hierarchy might see with a glance.

  The chair that was probably the Secretary’s by rights was occupied by a tiny pilot wearing a sleeveless red robe cut so low as to barely conceal her small breasts, and a pendant almost as large as her chest. A headband three times the width of the Senior Secretary’s bound her rusty-gray head.

  Unlike the Secretary, she also wore a smile. Zaneth Katrina, that would be, Theo thought.

  “If there’s a disturbance, Mothers,” Ricia said respectfully. “I believe the pilot was reaching for a cloaking as I arrived to bring her here.”

  The dour-faced one continued to peer, clicking her tongue and sounding remarkably like Aunt Ella when she disapproved of one of Theo’s whims or Father’s crotchets.

  “We see it all over her, young Wife. I have begun an abatement.”

  A what? Theo wondered, but there—the tiny lady had risen from behind the large desk, her smile undiminished.

  “Your name comes before you, Theo Waitley. Let me say welcome to Chaliceworks, Pilot-Captain. I am Zaneth Katrina, and for my work in the world, I am Senior Sexton. I have some years back put aside my piloting, as my eyes and my hands do not coordinate as they did when I was your age.”

  She bowed then, artless, and straightening, offered a hand.

  Theo took it firmly, as she would the hand of any other pilot, and heard Ricia gasp.

  “Theo Waitley, yes,” she said to the Senior Sexton, meeting the old eyes calmly. “Thank you for your welcome.”

  “Please, be seated.”

  There was a momentary scramble as Ricia dragged a chair out the corner and placed it where the Sexton had pointed, at the side of the desk.

  Theo sat, reading the room. She was being offered better than a standing interview, which the Senior Secretary hadn’t thought she’d rate—and far more than Ricia had expected. Despite her more intimate placement at desk side, Theo felt a slight chill, as though she’d been seated in a cold spot. She took a breath and gathered herself again with pilot calm.

  “There,” said Senior Secretary, tight-lipped, “we have evened the flow. Waitley, whoever taught you should certainly have pointed out that one does not launch such a cloaking in an ambient such as this, one must bring it with you, already in place. As it is you were inducing—”

  Theo looked to the woman; raised open hands.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean, ma’am,” she said respectfully.

  The woman raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  “Surely, you were working to slide attention from yourself. Come now, who taught you?”

  Theo glanced at the Sexton, who was following the byplay with interest.

  Well, she thought; maybe it’s not a rude question. Here.

  She raised both hands above her knees again, open—no threat, no hidden intent.

  “I learned the quiet-walk from my father,” she said carefully. “By observation.”

  “Your father?” The secretary was clearly disbelieving. “And how would a man learn s
uch a thing? Do you tell me he’s been trained in the Arts?”

  Theo felt her temper flicker. How dare this person who had never met him, scorn Father? She took a breath and made herself answer in a calm, low voice.

  “My father is an extraordinary man, ma’am, and all he knows is not mine to know, nor to guess. I have learned much from him—but where he learned what I imitated, I don’t know.”

  She turned to fix the quiet Sexton with a glance.

  “Ma’am,” she said earnestly, “you’re a pilot—you know what pilots are! We’ll learn from anybody, anywhere. We study, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.”

  A hint of pilot-sign flickered from the Sexton’s tiny fingers—perhaps it really was inner calm.

  “All true, of my own knowledge,” she said gently, “But your excellent father, Pilot—has he a name, an affiliation?”

  Well, as it happened her father had several names; several affiliations, and for a heartbeat, Theo wondered how she might explain—but there. It was no secret why she was here—and it was therefore obvious which of Father’s names would interest this lady most.

  “My father’s name is Daav yos’ Phelium Clan Korval,” she said crisply. “My mother is Kamele Waitley, a scholar of Delgado.”

  The Sexton’s smile wavered, and Terran-style she shook her head.

  “The Delgado connection is good; I admire it. The other…” The smile firmed. “But, there! You come to us with Korval’s name on your lips. Of course. It is plain. Now, please, allow me to apologize for trying your patience, and to ask you, as I ought to have asked at once, why you wished to speak with me.”

  “I come to you,” Theo said bringing to mind her mission, “as the emissary of Master Trader yos’Galan of Clan Korval. Lead Trader Lomar Fasholt, of Fasholt and Daughters, based at Swunaket Port, recommended both yourself and Chaliceworks to him as worthy of his attention. He is particularly interested in a long-term arrangement with your organization because of Korval’s change of residence.”

  “The Master Trader constructs routes to favor the new base, yes. It is understood.” The Sexton nodded, and leaned back in her chair.

  “You speak well,” she said. “I see no attempt to deceive, and I have your handshake. These things are important to us, in this place, Pilot. Again, I apologize for trying you.”

  She paused, put her hand on her pendant, and sighed.

  “Theo Waitley, you come to us in unsettled times. Fasholt has long been a name to conjure with in Temple and in commerce; and Fasholt’s name ought by rights be enough to enable us—a Senior Sexton, and a Master Trader’s pilot-emissary—to have a small conversation; and perhaps to engage in an experiment of trade.

  “But here is news the Master Trader may not as yet have. Lomar Fasholt has broken with her Temple, and her whereabouts are uncertain. We here—because these things concern all of us who serve the Goddess—we here are awaiting enlightenment. Is this break a honest disagreement, a proper complaint; a bid for a new and truer direction? Or is it schism born of disharmony and a desire for destruction?”

  She looked at Theo as if Theo might have the answer in her jacket pocket, along with her lace work.

  “And you—you arrive now, a now that those of us entrusted with certain powers feel is…pivotal. You come among us bearing strange tools, as my young Ricia tells us; with random event trotting at your heel like a half-trained hound. And you offer us an affiliation with Korval, Luck’s very darlings.”

  Zaneth Katrina smiled a small, reluctant, smile.

  “We here, who do the work of the Goddess as best we might…We do not trust Luck, Theo Waitley. Perhaps, in ordinary times, and properly warded, we would extend a hand to the Master Trader. Ordinary times…those we do not at present have.

  “All this to say that, at this juncture, with all that I see in you, and with all else that is in flux, we cannot do business with Korval. Not now.”

  Theo stared at her, frowning. “You won’t deal with Shan because of luck?”

  Zaneth Katrina laughed. “So speaks the daughter of scholars!” Her mirth died and again she shook her head.

  “Understand, Pilot, that the Temple, and Chaliceworks, one of the Temple’s major supports, continues to exist because in the face of chaos we are more careful than brave. There may come a time when the balance of things makes dealing with Korval reasonable for us. For the moment, take to Tree-and-Dragon our wish for prosperity on the Line and on the business. Also, be certain to take to this Shan yos’Galan, whose name echoes as Name by another sound, tell this Captain of Korval that his contact among the witches is valued by us, but is in transition. One need be careful.”

  “Now? For now, we shall all rest easier that you be gone off-world within a day. My office will so inform the port. Event trembles, Luck stretches. Show us that ordinary times are upon us again, and we shall leap at the opportunity to deal with Korval’s ships.”

  She rose then, did the Sexton, and bowed.

  “Good lift, Theo Waitley.”

  Chapter Nine

  Frenzel

  Chaliceworks Aggregations

  “Offworld within a day?”

  Theo repeated it in disbelief, but the Sexton was gone, retreated in three quick steps to a side door, already sealing behind her.

  “Offworld in a day!” Anger impelled Theo to her feet.

  Offworld—and Chaliceworks would inform the port? Put a black mark against Bechimo for no reason other than a…distrust of luck—of lucky people?

  Something flashed in the side of Theo’s vision; she spun, pilot-fast. Ricia fell back a step, the silver rings on her upraised hands catching the light; a faint and pretty blue fog wafting from her fingertips.

  Theo was shorter than Ricia, but the young woman shrank before her; indeed, Theo felt herself looking down at the robed figure very much as if she out-massed her and held the high ground.

  Phasrt, she did have the high ground! She’d done nothing—nothing to have her ship banished from port like a pirate! She’d come bearing an invitation to do business from a respected Master Trader! Who happened to come from a lucky family! And how lucky was it, to get thrown off of the world that had been your family’s base for hundreds of years, to have to burn down your own house, to—

  Ricia moved her hands again; the blue fog got bluer.

  “Please, Pilot,” she said, soothingly, “if you will come this way…”

  The soothing voice only made Theo angrier—treat her like a pirate and then like a child?—and the blue fog, thickening even more and acquiring a distinct sparkle—

  “Is that…blue stuff supposed to calm me down?” she snapped. Ricia’s shoulders twitched, but she met Theo’s eyes firmly.

  “Pilot, the…blue stuff…sequesters violent emotion. I mean no disrespect. However, we have here those who are sensitive to such emotion, and who must be protected. You are very clear, and somewhat…loud, at the moment.”

  “Loud? I haven’t raised my voice, and you know it!”

  “Pilot, it is not your voice that is loud, but your…self. Your will has been crossed and you have raised energy. As you have not directed the energy, or contained it, it spills everywhere, creating interference and distress for those who hear you.”

  Well, and in fact, she was angry. Justly angry. Reasonably angry. And as for spilling everywhere, they were lucky she didn’t have a target!

  Lucky.

  And as if the thought, or her anger had brought the memory forward, she remembered her new cousin Anthora, good-natured and air-witted, chattering—

  The luck runs roughly around us. Around all of us. And most especially, it would seem, around you…the brilliant unlikely tangle of you, Theo Waitley!

  So…corroboration. Maybe there was some reason for the Sexton’s dismissal. But that still didn’t mean that she, and her co-pilot and her ship should be treated like—

  Anger sparked, and before her was another bank of blue fog. Theo slashed a hand through it. “Please get that out o
f my face!”

  The blue coalesced; formed into a bubble—and blew out like a candle flame before a determined breath.

  Ricia stood very straight, arms stiff, hands held waist high, fingers spread as if her weight was distributed on them.

  “Pilot,” she said carefully, “might I respectfully request…Might I…” Here, she actually went to one knee briefly, as if in supplication, “might I beg the boon of your calm? We shall leave immediately; we shall walk much the way we came, and I will myself summon a vehicle, the white car. You will be conveyed to your ship. Safely to your ship, protected by our blessings.”

  Theo jammed her hand into her pockets, and came out with her lace work, which she stared at, seeing the location Bechimo had indicated as a place where teapots and ship parts appeared of their own will. The lace briefly took on stars and comets and waves of gas, the numbers and shapes of the lace being as real to her as the woman who’d turned her back on her.

  They wanted calm, did they?

  Right.

  Theo folded the lace into her left hand, closed her eyes, and reached for calm. Perhaps the calm of waking up to Kara…no, more than that. Perhaps the calm of a norbear—no, better: The calm of her cat Coyster kneading her shoulder while purring low and long enough to put them both to sleep.

  Theo pulled that calm over herself, and thought of the walk she’d taught herself, only yesterday. Father’s walk. That wanted her to be gone, to be invisible?

  She could work with that.

  Ricia visibly relaxed, and lowered her hands slowly.

  “Thank you, Pilot,” she whispered. “Please follow me.”

  * * *

  Years ago, Kamele Waitley had watched her onagrata, a challenging scholar, stimulating companion, surprising lover, and affectionate role-male for her daughter, demonstrate to that same daughter how a pilot packed for travel.

  It had involved one modestly-sized suitcase, and the pockets of a jacket. She had watched, astonished, as first he weeded out those things that could be easily replaced—books, entertainment cubes, favorite teas—before adroitly packing many more than she would have thought possible of those things which were more difficult to replace into that one small bag.