Dragon Ship

by Sharon Lee

  * * *

  Denobli let her find her own way to the door, and on her way out she turned to watch it close, seeing the over-sprayed indent…yes, there it was: Nubella Run.

  Happy.

  Happy was something she hadn’t felt in awhile, but that coincidence, as with the coincidence of Arin the thinker and Arin’s Toss, started her toward that mood. The waiting room was empty on her way out, she’d seen that, and when she stepped through the gravity change and into the larger area of Festevalya the crowds were thinner and more subdued. It was hard for her to remember that Tradedesk was closer to a two shift on and one off operation than the true All Open she seen at some stations.

  Her interview with Denobli had taken the better part of an hour, but she had told Clarence and Bechimo that she might be gone for two, and would call if it seemed that she would be longer still. Some shopping, that might be fun. Some scouting, maybe, for trade goods for Ynsolt’i, though the Festevalya was perhaps not the best hunting grounds for—

  Before her was a booth hung all around with bright scarves and colored smoke. Theo smiled, stepped forward—and felt her smile grow wider as she saw that the smoke were more scarves. She could see Kamele wearing one…she could almost see herself wearing one…

  A head popped out from around the back of the booth, followed by a tall thin man with a red face and a bright blue scarf wound casually around his neck.

  “Good shift to you, Pilot. Like to try a scarf? I’m having a special, in honor of the Carresens being in, you know.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tradedesk

  Bechimo could recall—literally, pull the files and review them—events that had occurred before he was aware. He gathered that humans did no such things, though the dramliz were said to do many things which gave him to believe, upon study, that they might avail themselves of the same subetheric channels that he utilized in his communications with the Others.

  He had, too, the memories of the days during which he was becoming aware. They were odd memories, some unintelligible due to over-calculation, some because he had overwhelmed sub-units in his eagerness to understand everything.

  As so often happened when he thought of his becoming, Joyita came to mind.

  The Founders had been input, keyed in stone, as he thought of it now, having read the whimsy of fictions and heard the speeches of many humans through recordings and videos. But Joyita, he had learned.

  The earliest usable memory of Joyita had seen the other Founders discussing engine alignments and fueling issues: Bechimo could recall that file, and know it as reviewing a file, which was different than the experience of Jermone Joyita.

  Uncle himself had been there, and…he had been becoming alert in stages, he Bechimo, aware that something should be happening.

  “Ah, Joyita, you are timely. I have, while waiting, powered up all of the sensors in the cortical complex; it appears that the units are redundantly functional, and the self-checks are complete. At your request, we have not fully activated the Volitional Aspects Analysis System, nor have we performed the full sub-unit consolidation and integration. I believe you wished to have some time to go over the power and data flows.”

  “That is so, Uncle, that is so. Am I to understand that Bechimo is elsewise fully installed, that there are no missing units, sensors, connectors, other than the subetheric timing and external communications core? In essence, Bechimo is here?”

  The man caught in the file was quiet, and lacking the forcefulness evident in Uncle; too, he seemed not to inspire forcefulness in Uncle. His motions were smooth, and yet—as Bechimo perceived now—perhaps lacking the militant stance trained fighters often assumed. The here indicated in the question was, in effect, the whole of the flight deck floor to overhead, wall to wall, screens and acceleration couches.

  “Such a moment of philosophy, Mentor. The where of self mocks us all, does it not?”

  “I think the mocking, I think that requires intent, Uncle. Truth is, for success; mocking requires acceptance.”

  Joyita’s voice was less sharp-edged than those of the Founders besides Uncle. Bechimo now could identify the burr and half-tongued habits of the Wikesworlds; at the time of recording, his vocabulary was yet involved in phonemic transliterations, and thus slower on the uptake.

  “Indeed, and thus someone like you for this stage, Mentor, rather than someone like me. We had been testing other systems earlier, but here, on Screen Six, the graphs and charts and the flows. Jermone Joyita, this is Bechimo, your student.”

  The man bowed lightly to Uncle—Uncle, now a Founder, had been imprinted—and bowed also to Screen Six.

  “Bechimo,” said Joyita, “soon enough we shall converse. I look forward to this, and we shall have decisions, you and I, and discussions, and even, with some luck, disagreements and disengagements.”

  Then, he turned to Uncle, did Joyita, and bowed what Bechimo now knew was a bow related to the oldest Liaden style, tainted with the left-leaning habit of the Wikes. There were rings on the hand that he rested on that padded spot, a leftover from a fashion that was a leftover from a necessity all but forgot.

  “My trip was well, Uncle, though I am sure you know that, or you would have asked, and I’m told the prepay was well-arrived. As to other arrangements, one of your people has my bag and is taking it to my room; I’m promised everything on the ship is functional, bath to butterkeeper, all but the main drive, the weapons, and the secrets. We shall discuss and test, you and I, the cut-outs and such ahead of time, several times, across several days, and if you will, we shall discuss other things as may be required.”

  “Now, how, from this board, shall I control the information? The controls…”

  “Yes, of course. We do have Bechimo accepting voice commands—those modules are fully functional. Should you prefer, you may utilize the keypad, it emerges should you touch the recess here.

  “Also, if I may say so, Mentor, the Wikes have not seen me for some time, nor I any of them, and lacking smartstrands and loolaws, I am less up-to-date on the manners current than I might be. If your trip requires discussion, please bring it forth.”

  “Oh calm, you and me, Uncle. We share fascinations and ought be pleased enough of that. Now hear me with this: Your fees are good, as you know, but it is the purpose of this I admire—I was much in favor of Arin and his goals, and pleased to see someone moving on even if his son’s been set to another orbit. I am not easy with the Scouts and I’m not easy with the loopers running to easy short money ’stead of family. So here I am, looking to talk with someone new.”

  * * *

  The scarf-vendor had not only been running a special, he’d been informative. Theo soon had in hand a neatly-sealed packet containing the two scarves she had been going to buy—“Samples,” he said with a wink. “You bein’ from the trade-side an’ all.”—while his card reposed in an inner pocket, with a datakey bearing the ‘company catalog.’

  “Retail, wholesale, Festevalya-sale prices,” he told her. “Lookin’ to find that wider market. Lot of us here looking for that.”

  Theo frowned at him.

  “I thought the Carresens run the Festevalya.”

  “They do, they do! But this ain’t like a full-bore Carresens—that happens down to Vincza. A full-bore Carresens, that’s everything off all the ships, and Carresens traders on the ground talking, selling, buying.” He smiled, wistfully. “A sight to see, let me tell you, Pilot, and worth you timing it next trip to hit system ’fore the rainy season sets in.

  “But anywho, here at the Festevalya, there’s Carresens-wares, sure enough, and like you said, they run the thing—but there’s us, too, up from Vinzca and Chustling—the ones of us who passed the mustard and got accepted for a booth. We’re here for the liners, see? When the rainy season’s over, we’ll all go home, and start workin’ for next rainy season. This is my third Festevalya, and I got a back-log of scarves, scarves being pretty easy to make, once you get the hang of it. Some of my friends, here—�
� He jerked his head, “they work themselfs to a nubbin just putting together enough stock for the rainy season. Some others of us, we got back-stock, which it’d sure be nice to get working.”

  Theo looked at him; she looked at the Festevayla. She looked back to the booth-keeper—Charn Duxbury, according to himself.

  “Could you give me an…introduction to those people with back-stock?” she asked.

  “Sure can.” From his grin, she could tell she’d asked the right question. “Just let me put up the Be Back Soon sign.”

  * * *

  The man named Uncle stood in the comfortable dimness of the healing chamber, contemplating the unit, and the play of lights along its surface.

  He had been here for some time—rather longer than the machine’s message warranted.

  Simply put, it was the determination of the medical unit that the patient in its care had reached an end of healing.

  Not that the patient was dead—nothing so dire as that. Only that he had been damaged too badly, and tarried too long in the shadows. All the arts at the command of a very sophisticated device was not enough to seduce him back to perfect health.

  Uncle suspected, strongly, that the man reposing in what health had been restored to him would not care to spend the remainder of his days crippled and dependent upon devices to perform certain bodily functions for him.

  He might, indeed, wake him, and put the question, for certainty’s sake.

  Or he might simply give the machine leave to withdraw its support, send a letter of condolence to Korval with the body, and turn his attention to other, increasingly pressing, matters.

  Life and death were conditions to which he was well accustomed. He had himself been reborn more times than he could enumerate, absent a check of the records. And, of course, in order to be reborn, one must first, die.

  It was that thought which had caught him, and from which this abstracted reverie arose.

  He shook himself at last, but he neither departed, nor did he extend a hand to the control panel.

  Rather, he crossed the small room and pulled open a locker. Hung neatly inside were the pilot’s leathers, cleaned and mended, his boots, likewise, sitting on the floor below. On the shelf above, a small transparent box held such things as had been in various pockets—and two seed pods.

  The Uncle opened the box and removed the seed pods.

  He had never heard that Korval’s Tree was prescient, but that was perhaps something not easily determined, even by those who had nurtured it and knew it best. It was certainly probable that the Tree, like everything else that came into its orbit, had been tainted with Korval’s Luck.

  Two seed pods. One of them for a woman long years dead, as the man in the healing unit counted such things. The other intended for that same man, yet unripe at the time of need.

  And yet…Had he understood the timing, or the need against which these had been designed?

  Two pods.

  Two.

  Uncle was not a superstitious man. He was not, so he firmly believed, a spiritual man.

  He was, however, a practical man, and a bit of a gambler, too.

  One did not, so his gambler’s instincts told him, bet against Korval’s Tree.

  Another step brought him to the comm. He pressed a button.

  “Dulsey, help me prepare the rebirthing units.”

  “Both of them.”

  * * *

  “Trade samples” from six different vendors in hand, pockets full of cards and datakeys, Theo reached the elevator just as the door slid aside and a tall gaggle of deep blue and silver uniforms stepped out, talking noisily among themselves, and careless of anything not in their orbit.

  Theo danced to one side to avoid a man with sun-yellow hair done in careful ringlets down to his silver epaulets, and unfortunately brushed the sleeve of the dark-haired woman next to him, who gave an exclamation of annoyance.

  “Watch where you step, single-ship; there are other people on—Theo?”

  The last word was nearly a squeak, as was Theo’s answering, “Asu?”

  * * *

  They hadn’t parted in the best way, but no random passerby could have read that from Asu’s engulfing hug, or in the eager way she introduced her to the surrounding uniforms as, “My old roomie, Theo Waitley! It’s true what they say—every ship comes to Tradedesk!”

  The uniforms had laughed more loudly, Theo thought, than the joke had been worth, and a small woman with hair that matched the silver braid on her sleeve, asked Theo what ship she was in on.

  “Bechimo,” she said, “trade-side.”

  “We saw that one come to dock,” the yellow-haired man said, adding, “Unusual lines,” which made Theo warm to him, and, “Pod-pusher, of course,” that inclined her toward giving a hard yank on a ringlet, just to see if it was real.

  “I’m going to buy Theo a drink,” Asu announced. “Pyx—order for me; I’ll join you for the main course.”

  This plan being accepted by the uniforms, Asu bore Theo away from the Festvayla, into a quiet hall, a quiet drinkery, and a quiet corner booth, ordering Vincza Vino for them both.

  “I can’t stay long,” Theo said, piling her packages on the seat beside her. “My second—”

  “What happened to you?” demanded Asu.

  Theo blinked.

  “Well, the nexus of violence thing,” she said, trying to remember the last major event that she and Asu would have shared. “I had to leave campus right away, on pain of imprisonment, so I got on the shuttle to Hugglelans.”

  Asu nodded. “I thought that’s where you’d go, even though Kara ven’Arith wouldn’t say. But you were gone!”

  Theo blinked at her. “You looked for me?”

  “Well, of course, I looked for you! You still had one of my markers, and I thought that—”

  Comprehension dawned. It had never occurred to her to ask Asu for help getting off Eylot. Asu diamon Dayez, that was—of the luxury cruise lines.

  “I didn’t think,” Theo confessed. “But even if I had, you’d said that I couldn’t call in your marker with Diamon Lines.”

  “Asking me to have you placed in one of our VIP rooms for a safe trip out wouldn’t have called on the Lines,” Asu scolded, sounding much like Theo remembered. “I had discretion, there.”

  Theo shook her head and had a sip of wine. It had an…interesting green tang to it.

  “Well, to answer—I did go to Hugglelans, and Aito didn’t want me there, so he shipped me out to take second board on a Galactica courier. Did that until I got my jacket, then took a…a private contract as a courier. First board and acting captain now, on Bechimo, under contract with Tree-and-Dragon, exploring the possibility of setting up a loop.”

  She stopped, because that brought Asu up-to-date, and also because her old roomie was staring at her in apparent disbelief.

  “First class?” she asked. “Acting captain?”

  “That’s right,” Theo said. “Didn’t want to go big-ship. You remember that, Asu.”

  “Mad for courier,” the other woman said darkly, and sipped her wine. By the time she had emerged from behind the glass, she was smiling again.

  “I’m glad you’ve done so well for yourself!”

  “Thanks, but—look at you!” Theo waved a hand at the fancy uniform, knowing Asu would take it as admiring. “Catch me up.”

  “Well, I graduated, and took my place on the Perfection. I’m second class, in rotation, working toward first. Things are going very well, and I expect to get my big-ship ticket within five Standards.”

  She reached into her belt and, executing a flourish, offered Theo a card between the first and second fingers of her right hand. Her fingers were long and shapely, discreet rings flashed gem-light from several.

  Theo took the card. The front was the same deep blue as Asu’s uniform, with the Diamon Line logo in bright silver. On the back was Asu diamon Dayez, Diamon Family Pilot, a beam-code and a box number, care of Diamon Lines.

  “Thank
you,” she said, and lifted her chin against the feeling of being just a little grubby and unkempt. Asu had always made her feel that way.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have a card yet. I’m in the Guild Roster.”

  “Or I can certainly get you through Korval’s trade offices.” Asu finished her wine. “I remember when you thought that Korval was a children’s story.”

  Theo nodded. “I’ve learned a lot, since school,” she said.

  * * *

  The so-called Ice Cream Shoppe aboard Hoselteen was, in Kamele’s opinion, its best feature. It managed to be airy and bright in an environment that was otherwise dark and close, and very quickly became her favorite place to work and read.

  It was also…comforting that the serving staff quickly came to recognize her and her habits. Her arrival was greeted with smiles of apparent and genuine pleasure, and a murmured, “Coffee on the way, ma’am. Your table’s all ready for you.”

  Such routine and recognition was pleasant, but she hadn’t quite realized that the staff had become as attached to her and her routine as she was herself until she walked into the shoppe to hear Lia exclaim sharply, “That’s Professor Waitley’s table, sir! Please, choose another.”

  Kamele felt her cheeks warm as she hurried to the place, seeing Lia, and a man still standing there.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she said. “Lia, surely I don’t own this table!”

  The server looked at her. “It’s where you work every day, ma’am.”

  “Nor would I be so churlish as to roust someone from both their usual table and their routine,” the man said, turning from the table and bowing gently. He looked up at Kamele with a smile. “Forgive me…Professor? And, please, enjoy this pleasant corner.”