Halfling Moon

by Sharon Lee

  Halfling Moon

  Adventures in the Liaden Universe®

  Number Sixteen

  Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  Pinbeam Books

  http://www.pinbeambooks.com

  Halfling Moon

  Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental and really amazing.

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher or authors except for the purpose of reviews.

  Hidden Resources © 2009 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  Moon On The Hills © 2009 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  Cover art copyright © 2009, 2011 by Bill Wright

  Published by Pinbeam Books

  PO Box 707

  Waterville, ME 04903

  email: info@pinbeambooks.com

  ISBN:

  Kindle: 978-1-935224-24-2

  EPub: 978-1-935224-25-9

  PDF: 978-1-935224-26-6

  HALFLING MOON

  Smashwords Edition

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  For the Clans of Blueblaze and Kennebec, for all the joy your offspring have brought us

  Hidden Resources

  Runig's Rock

  The ship was still there, hanging just inside the sensors' range. Not a ship of the Clan, certainly; nor yet the ship of an ally, the captain of which would have been given the pass-codes, hailing protocols, and some understanding of the capabilities of this, Korval's most secret and secure hidey-hole.

  This ship . . . This ship only sat there, making no attempt at contact, seeming to think itself both hidden and secure -- watching.

  Waiting.

  The urgent question being -- waiting for what?

  Alone in the control parlor, Luken bel'Tarda leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, wearily.

  His wager, slim as it was, rested on the square marked "orders," while Lady Kareen, his collaborator in maintaining the integrity of Korval's treasure-house, had her coin on "back-up."

  That the fruition of either choice would do more than inconvenience themselves and that which they guarded was assured. With Plan B in effect, he and Lady Kareen were their own safety and rescue. Even if they had been inclined to endanger others of the Clan in these uncertain times, the news that reached them was not encouraging. Liad in turmoil, trade in disarray, murmurings even of the Juntavas, which in saner times certainly took care to keep itself and its business far from the news feeds . . .

  No, even if they had been so minded, there was no certainty that any of the secure message drops remained so, and they could not risk what they guarded on anything less than certainty.

  They were not without resources -- weapons, that would be. And so it was that he and Kareen had decided, uneasily, to wait, though at an increased level of alertness.

  Luken rubbed his eyes again and looked once more to the screens.

  The ship was gone.

  * * *

  Syl Vor was snoring.

  To be perfectly truthful, it wasn't so much a snore as a sort of puff-puff-puff sound that Quin customarily found . . . comforting. If his small cousin were sleeping thus deeply, it must after mean that they were all perfectly safe, no matter that they were in hiding, and deliberately cut off from clan and kin.

  Tonight, though -- say that tonight thoughts of kin weighed heavy on Quin's mind, magnifying the small sound of Syl Vor's sleep into an intolerable annoyance.

  He had tried turning onto his side, and putting his head under the pillow. But then it was hot, and he couldn't find a comfortable place for his hands, and his feet kept twitching, and --

  Syl Vor sneezed, tiny and sharp, like a kitten; he muttered, bed clothes rustling as he resettled himself without really waking up.

  Quin took a careful breath, loud in the sudden silence.

  There was no sound from the bunk beneath, where his cousin Padi slept as if all were well, as if they hadn't just today . . .

  Well. It wasn't her father who hadn't reported in, after all. Cousin Shan had missed several call-ins, but then began reporting again, just as usual.

  Pat Rin yos'Phelium, however . . .

  Pat Rin yos'Phelium had never once reported in. Which meant . . .

  Quin swallowed, hard.

  It does not mean, he told himself, that Father is . . . is -- anything could have happened! He might be safe with, with an ally, or . . . traveling! Or . . .

  But his inventiveness failed here, and after all he wasn't a youngling like Syl Vor. He knew what Plan B meant. More, he knew that people could die. That people did die.

  Even people one cared about.

  But not, he thought, Father. He's far too clever. He will have -- He will have done SOMEthing . . .

  He swallowed again, and it was abruptly intolerable, lying here with his thoughts whirling, and the children asleep around him.

  Syl Vor sneezed again.

  Quin gritted his teeth and sat up in his bunk. He put the blanket aside, and swung silently over the edge.

  * * *

  Luken had walked the Rock for the third and last time during his shift, manually verifying every reading. It was in its way a soothing routine, and by the time he let himself into the family quarters, he was fairly calmed. He might, he thought, be calmer, if he could know what had moved that ship, now, and whether it had gone for good, or for ill.

  It might be, he told himself, that the ship master had never harbored any intentions regarding themselves. There were reasons enough for a ship to drop out of Jump and tarry a time. Urgent repairs would be one reason. An importuned or wounded pilot, another. Also, a ship and a pilot might from time to time find it necessary to lie low for such reasons as tended to beset pilot-kind. It was an odd eddy of space they sat in, and far out from usual traffic. Still, they were not hidden, only inconveniently located. Despite which, a pilot of Korval had found it -- the place and the Rock -- and so another pilot might also.

  A clatter drew his attention as he turned into the main hall. A clatter and a light, glowing green over the door to the galley. The lady's constitution was excellent, as was her discipline, but he had once or twice met Kareen yos'Phelium awake during the latter part of his shift. An early riser, she styled herself on the first such meeting, with a wry modesty much unlike her usual mode. She had offered him tea at that first, and perhaps not quite chance, meeting. He had accepted and they had talked the pot empty. And so it was on the second meeting, and the third. On the subject of their shared duty, he came to know her as a stern and subtle thinker, and was glad of her insights.

  Indeed, he thought, putting his hand on the latch, he would be glad of her insight just now.

  Nor would a cup of tea be out of the way.

  The door slid aside. A slim figure in a rumpled robe turned from the counter, teapot in hand, opal blue eyes wide in a thin, golden face.

  "Quin," said Luken, smiling.

  "Grandfather!" the boy gasped, looking conscious. He smiled, then, and nodded down at the pot.

  "Would you like a cup of tea?
It's fresh made."

  * * *

  Grandfather looked tired, Quin thought. No, more than that, he looked worried. That was an honor. Grandfather was treating him like an adult, not like a child or a halfling to whom an untroubled face must be shown.

  It was also deeply disturbing, which Quin had noticed was the case with many of adulthood's honors. He sipped his tea, watching Luken do the same, and wished that there was some way in which he could ease that all-too-obvious worry. His father, he thought, would know exactly what to do.

  But his father wasn't here.

  Heart cramped, Quin put his cup down.

  "Would you like some cookies, Grandfather?" he asked.

  Luken lowered his cup, and smiled gently. "Thank you, boy-dear, but I think not. The tea is very welcome, though." He sipped again, appreciatively, and placed his cup on the table. "Now, tell me, what brings you awake so early in the morn?"

  When they had first come here, Grandmother Kareen had insisted that they keep the homeworld's hours and maintain a strict division of day and night. She said it was their duty, which Quin supposed it must be, since Grandmother knew everything about duty and how it was most properly fulfilled. For himself, Quin could have done with a little less duty and a little more Luken, though it worked out well enough once the two elders began to rotate shifts, "so that we do not become stale and accustomed," as Grandfather had it.

  "Quin?"

  He started, and sighed. "I was . . . thinking," he admitted, and suddenly leaned forward, his hands gripping each other painfully. "Grandfather, do you think -- do you think it goes well? It's been so long . . ."

  "Has it been so long?" Luken murmured. He patted Quin's arm softly. "I suppose it has been some time, at that, and your year is longer than mine by reason of you having so few of them. Well." He picked up his cup.

  Quin forced himself to sit back and picked up his own cup. The tea was good, he thought, but he didn't sip.

  Neither did Luken.

  "I think," he said slowly, as if he were considering the matter deeply, "that it goes as well as it may. Understand that some matters require more time than others. The First Speaker will surely wish to be certain of Korval's position and of our allies before she calls us to her side."

  The First Speaker -- Cousin Nova, that was, who was almost as much of a stickler as Grandmother Kareen. Quin had once remarked to his father that Cousin Nova was no gambler, and received a sharp set-down for his impertinence.

  I should hope that the one who holds the clan's future in trust for the delm is everything that is prudent. Gambling with lives is for Korval to do.

  Quin bit his lip. "If it -- If the First Speaker needed pilots, she'd remember to send for me -- wouldn't she, Grandfather?"

  "Things would be desperate indeed, boy-dear, before the First Speaker deprived us of our pilot."

  Our pilot. That was, Quin thought, with some bitterness, him. Not that he'd been allowed to pilot anything more than a sim since they came here, and done enough board drills to last him a long lifetime. He held a second class card, but, he thought, he should have been a first class by now. Would have been, if Plan B hadn't caught them all in its net of duty and boredom.

  "I'm scarcely a pilot if I'm not allowed to fly," he pointed out, his voice sounding churlish in his own ears. "Your pardon, Grandfather," he muttered, and sipped tepid tea.

  "That's only the truth spoken," Luken said, pushing his cup across the table. "Pour for me, child."

  He did, first filling Grandfather's cup, then his own, and put the pot aside.

  "You recall the protocol," Luken said gently. "If I fall, the keys are yours, whereupon --"

  "No!" Quin interrupted, so forcefully that his tea sloshed over the edge of the cup and onto his hand. "Grandfather, you are not going to fall!"

  Luken raised his eyebrows. "Well, if it comes to that, it is my duty to fall, if it will buy the pilot and the passengers time to be away," he said mildly, and inclined his head. "Do you know, Quin, I think that I will have some cookies after all."

  "Of course, Grandfather." He rose at once and went to the cabinet, had the tin down and took a moment to arrange the cookies on a plate. Just because we are in exile, Grandmother said, often, is no reason to descend into barbarism.

  He took the plate to the table, offering it first to Luken, who took a single cookie, daintily, and bit into it with obvious enjoyment.

  Quin put the plate in the center of the table, and reclaimed his chair. The cookies were his favorite -- vanilla and spice seed -- but he wasn't hungry. He sipped his tea.

  "Now," Luken murmured gently, done with his treat, "what news?"

  Quin blinked.

  "I -- news, Grandfather?" he managed.

  Luken sighed. "You must forgive a man grown old in the ways of Liad. It had seemed to me, boy-dear, that you placed a subtle emphasis on you in the declaration that I would not fall, which suggested to me that you have had news, perhaps, of . . . someone who may indeed have fallen."

  Quin sighed. It was useless to try to hide things from Luken; he knew that. Really, Grandfather probably knew all and everything, even about Padi helping him crack the data-locks.

  He sighed again and looked up into his Grandfather's eyes.

  "Father hasn't signed in," he said slowly. "Not once since -- since Plan B . . ."

  "Ah, I had forgotten that you held the access codes to the Roster," Luken said gently.

  Quin pressed his lips together and said nothing. If by some chance Grandfather didn't know about Padi's assistance, he wouldn't hear of it from Quin.

  "Very good," Luken said after a moment. "I must say that you surprise me, boy-dear. I would have thought you knew by now that one who listens at doors hears nothing good."

  That was a lesson long ago learned, true enough, but--

  "I had to know," he muttered.

  "Of course you did," Luken replied courteously. He reached for another cookie and raised his eyes to Quin's. "Now, tell me: what it is that you know?"

  "I --" He gasped, feeling tears rise, swallowed, and forced himself to meet Grandfather's calm, grey eyes.

  "I know that Father hasn't signed in," he said steadily. He took a breath. "The rest is speculation."

  "I see. Well." Luken bit into his cookie and sighed. "I agree that it is extremely vexatious of Pat Rin to have ignored protocol. His mother, your grandmother, is certain to ring a peal over him, when they are once again in the same room. For myself, I have determined to do nothing of the kind, for he will have had his reasons, you know. Your father does not much resemble an idiot."

  Quin considered him, the heavy misery that had settled in his chest lightening somewhat.

  "You know that he is . . . safe, then, Grandfather?"

  Luken sighed and picked up his teacup.

  "Child, I know nothing of the sort. I merely hope."

  "Hope." He hadn't meant to speak so scornfully, not to Grandfather, and yet --

  "It's no shameful thing," Luken murmured, "to hope. Nor would you be alone, did you take up the habit. We each of us hope for a Balanced outcome, and a speedy return home. Here, we hope for the safety of those who actively expose themselves to danger, while they hope to prevail, so that they and we will be reunited and that soon."

  Quin cleared his throat, thinking of the last time he'd seen his father. They'd said their public good-byes at the foot of the gangway; his father had pressed his hand, and abjured him to study well, wearing what Quin thought of as his card-playing face. All very ordinary, and he was only going back to school, after all, and would be home again at the end of the term.

  There had been no reason for it, but Quin had paused just as he was about to enter the shuttle. Paused and turned his head.

  At the foot of the gangway stood his father still, his dark hair riffled by the evening breeze, his face . . . attentive. Quin caught his eyes, and Father smiled, wide and sweet, as he so seldom did, and never in public. Quin had smiled back; Father raised his hand, fingers rippl
ing in the sign for soon. Then the steward called and Quin had to clear the door, find his seat, strap in, and lean back, all the while glowing with the warmth Father's smile.

  "Quin?"

  He looked up into Grandfather's eyes. "It would be good if we were called home soon," he said, gravely. "And in the meanwhile, Grandfather, it doesn't quite seem like Father to have allowed anything ill to befall him."

  Luken smiled and put his warm hand over Quin's cold one.

  "No, it doesn't, does it?"

  * * *

  "They've gone?"

  Those were Kareen yos'Phelium's first words when she entered the control parlor to relieve Luken as guardian on duty. A sharp-tongued stickler she might be, and what she had done to his boy never to be forgot, or forgiven, but no one could say that the lady was dull or that her ability to do sums was in any way impaired.

  "Directly before the last manual survey," Luken said, glancing again at the screen, yet innocent of lurkers. "I admit to a certain dismay."

  "One would prefer them in eye," Kareen agreed, taking the second's chair. "Perhaps they grew bored?"

  "I could find no ease along that road, though you might do better," Luken answered cordially.

  Kareen sighed. "I expect I shall find none, either. It's an ill road, beginning to end." She frowned at the screen.

  "Shall we take to the ship?"

  According to the First Speaker's wisdom, he was the elder-in-charge; thus the question came properly to him. Of course. Nor was it an ill question, only annoying in the way that questions which have no clean answer so often were.

  Certainly, one felt increasingly exposed, in this supposedly rarely traveled corner of space. Certainly, a ship afforded flexibility, mobility, that their current situation did not. And yet . . .

  "A destination?" he murmured, inviting her suggestion.

  Again, she sighed. "Without proper access to certain information . . ."

  Precisely. A ship might also, of course, gain them the news feeds that their stable fortress location lacked. It was no use thinking of sending one out for news, of course; they had but a single ship. If one went, all accompanied.