Due Diligence

by Sharon Lee

  After he had explored the apartment, he looked in the tiny kitchen. He had eaten little at the luncheon, and only sipped the wine, feeling the need to have such wits as he owned well about him. Nor had he done justice to the breakfast he had been offered at Glavda Empri.

  He ought, he reasoned, be hungry; it had been a long day and difficult, and by no means over, yet. A perusal of the various small foods and vintages in the kitchen, however, failed to turn up anything that tempted, and in the end he drew a glass of cold water, and went to stand in the window, and look down at a tangle of vegetation through which a slender walk could barely be seen.

  He knew little about growing things or gardens. The disorder of this one appealed to him, though, and he was drawn to the colors of the many flowers.

  He glanced upward, but the angle of the window foiled any sighting of Korval's Tree, the top of which he could see quite clearly from his rooms at Glavda Empri.

  After a time, his water finished, he left the window, and glanced to the bookcase, not so that he might know which titles were available to him, but that he might see the small clock set on one of the shelves.

  His stomach tightened, and his chest cramped. In an hour, he was to meet his wife in the contract-room, there to perform such duties as had been lain out in the contract.

  Deliberately, he closed his eyes, and ran one of the mental exercises which were taught to pilots, to ensure that their minds were clear and their energy levels high.

  His breathing smoothed; his muscles relaxed.

  Yes, he told himself, that's more the mode; it's a risky flight, but you'll do well so long as you mind your board.

  Well.

  With another glance at the clock, he went to ready himself for duty.

  #

  He arrived in the contract room early, so not to keep his wife waiting–which was respectful, according to the sections of Code Lady yo'Lanna had him Learn, and then discussed with him over the morning meal, in order to set the material in his mind.

  Respectful it may have been, but it did nothing for his nerves to be alone with the ornate bed, a living vine growing up the posts and across the headboard, the flowers nodding heavily and giving up their scent to the room.

  He regretted now, his failure to eat; he had wanted to keep a clear head, but the flowers would have him muddled before ever the business was well underway.

  Stepping away from the bed, he opened the window, filling his lungs with cool air lightly scented with loam and green growing things and flowers of a. . .less complex nature.

  He leaned closer into the window, closed his eyes–and snapped upright, eyes open, as he heard a door open.

  Chi yos'Phelium, his contracted wife, glided silently toward him on naked feet. She wore, as he did, a long silk robe, belted at the waist. His robe was black, painted red flowers extending from his left shoulder, across his chest, down, and all around the hem. Her robe was green, patterned with small blue birds–or small blue dragons–and the belt was tied loosely, indeed.

  He swallowed, hard, and recalled himself, a bare relumma in the past, rough and angry in a low port bar, thinking that certainly he would bed the elder pilot, if she was prepared to buy herself some fun, and maybe he would keep her on his string, too, since he'd had no other means to eat.

  That Fer Gun pen'Uldra, he thought now, had been an idiot. A swaggering port-tough who had no idea of real danger.

  This Fer Gun pen'Uldra, contracted to give the fine elder pilot before him a child. . .recognized every one of his failings in an instant; his lack of finesse or any other bed-skill, save, perhaps, endurance, and even that, he thought, as she crossed the room like a tigress, might fall before her.

  She was well to look upon, too. Elder pilot indeed, he sneered at his past idiot self. Oh, she was older than he was, in years, in guile, in polish. She might undertake to teach him his own name, and he would learn from her lesson. He was not her match–not near her match, in any thing–and it was far more likely that she would have kept a brash pilot on her string for exactly so long as she had use for him, had their first meeting gone as he had predicted, and cast him away with nothing when she was done.

  The green robe clung to every line of her long, strong frame. The skin revealed by the loosened knot was pure gold, and so smooth his fingers, still rough despite Lady yo'Lanna's lotions, would surely catch and scratch her.

  She came to stand beside him, and turned her face to the window, smiling into the soft breeze.

  "The inner court at this hour is splendid, is it not?" she said in the comfortable mode of comrade.

  "The breeze is refreshing," he offered in turn, marking the unsteadiness in his own voice.

  "That it is," she said, apparently noting nothing amiss.

  She stepped slightly away from the window, turning so that they faced each other.

  "I have a gift for you," she said; "may I give it?"

  His victory was that he did not look immediately at what the robe revealed, but kept his eyes on hers.

  "I. . .have no gift for you," he said, around a feeling of strong dismay. The giving of contract-room gifts had not been among those customs he had Learned. Had he given offense already? Perhaps it might soothe the feelings of his past self, that at least it had not been for his performance in bed.

  "There is no reason why you should have any gift for me, other than yourself," Chi yos'Phelium was saying, with a smile. "It is a whim–I fear that you will find me whimsical."

  She paused, head tipped to one side.

  "May I give the gift?"

  He drew a breath, seeking calm, and managed to meet her smile with one of his own.

  "Yes, please."

  "Excellent."

  She raised the hand she had kept slightly behind her; he took the card from between slim fingers–and only just managed to swallow a curse.

  "My license!" he said, staring at her.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  "Is the gift inept?"

  He drew a breath, folding his hand around the card in sudden fear that she might snatch it back. Whimsical, indeed.

  "The gift is appreciated," he said choosing his words with as much care as he was able. "But, Pilot–I was to have stood, wingless, a year. At the end of our contract, you had promised to come with me to the Guild and speak for my good name. That," he concluded, somewhat breathlessly, "was the agreement."

  "Well, so it was," she said. "But you will need your license and your wings if we are to take our partnership forward in the matter of the small trader, and so I put the matter before the Guild Master. He was much struck."

  She bought your card back for you, Fer Gun told himself. Gods alive, she bribed the Guild Master. He ought to have cared, indeed, the risk of it chilled him, but very nearly all of his thought was for the license in his hand, which he would not relinquish again for anything he could name.

  "We also reviewed the matter which had brought you to the attention of the Port Proctors and so the Guild," Chi said, turning toward the small table that held a pitcher of wine and a plate of cheeses and small breads.

  Fer Gun swallowed.

  "And?" he said.

  Her eyebrows rose again.

  "Why, the Guild Master agreed that your cousins are very clever. Will you have wine?"

  He blinked. That was twice she had commented on the cleverness of his cousins. There was something there, and he too thick-headed to see it–and the lady had asked him a question.

  "Wine," he said careful again. "I would prefer not. The flowers. . ."

  The flowers were making him queasy, and his head was beginning to ache with their stench. If he was to do her any good at all this night. . .

  "Ah."

  She inclined her head.

  "They are rather insistent, are they not?" she said and walked past him to push the window wide.

  Pausing there, she looked down in to the garden, then turned again to face him.

  "I should like to go for a walk in the garden," she
said. "It is my habit of an evening, and I have not had an opportunity, amid all the brangle and the bowing. How if you put your ticket safely away, and accompany me? It is a very fine garden, despite its disreputable habit."

  "I –" he stammered to a halt. "What does one wear, to ramble through a garden at night?"

  She glanced down at herself, and then to him.

  "These will do," she said. "Will you come?"

  "Yes," he said, and bowed. "I will only be a moment."

  * * *

  It was much pleasanter in the garden than inside, Chi thought; and the lad–she stopped herself. She needed to stop thinking of him in quite that way. Yes, she could give him a dozen years or more–yet he was a man grown, who held a Jump pilot's license, and had managed, against considerable odds to the contrary, to survive his childhood, the death of his sole protector, and the particular attentions of his so-clever cousins.

  Thrust into a game the rules of which he could not hope to master, yet he had managed to keep himself in good order, without exposing vulnerability or weakness to those who might be expected to exploit such things. He had learnt the lessons he had been set to, and Ilthiria had not spared him, for either his youth or his upbringing.

  "Who cares for all of these?" he asked now.

  She glanced over to him–very nearly, he matched her own height, a novelty of its own–and moved her shoulders.

  "In theory, I do," she said, wry in the face of his earnestness. "In truth, there is Master Gardner Byneta with whom I confer, and who will occasionally allow me to weed out a planting, but does not, I fear, quite trust me with a landscape knife."

  He frowned at her.

  "You were a scout, Lady yo'Lanna told me."

  "Oh, indeed. A captain of scouts, as it came about, and to the astonishment of everyone, including myself."

  "Then you're surely safe with a landscape knife," he pursued.

  She grinned.

  "As you know and I know. However, those who recall the days when one was scarcely safe with a rubber ball, and liable to stab one's own hand with a butter knife. . ."

  She smiled, inviting him to acknowledge the joke, and after a moment had pleasure of seeing a smile that actually reached those space-black eyes, and very nearly thawed them.

  "In any case, it is Master Byneta who cares for the garden, as I do not dare go against her wishes."

  The path they were following all but disappeared beneath an overgrown bank of viburnum. She stepped ahead of him, slipping her hand into his as she passed. She felt his fingers twitch in shock, but he did not withdraw, and she tugged him after her, around the path's last curve, and into the Tree Court.

  She paused at the very end of the path to allow him to see what it was he approached. His hand, she kept firmly in hers and he did not withdraw, nor even seem to know that they were linked.

  Herself, she felt the Tree's regard focus upon her and a greenly sense of welcome. Excellent, her throw had not gone awry.

  "Korval's Tree," she said, quietly, to her husband. "My favorite place in all the inner garden."

  "It is less grown over, here," Fer Gun said, soft-voiced, as if he sensed something sleeping and did not wish to wake it. "But. . .more wild."

  "That would be the Tree's influence," she said. "It likes its comfort, be certain of that, and makes certain that all and everything in this court is arranged to its best liking. Come, let us introduce you."

  She stepped forward, walking carefully over the surface roots, the grass cool and damp against naked feet. He came willingly, still with his hand in hers.

  "You would introduce me to a. . .tree?" Fer Gun asked, when they had achieved the trunk and she had placed her hand palm first against the rough, warm bark.

  "It likes to meet people," Chi told him. "There are not many new faces come to speak with it in the Tree Court, and it does not itself, you know, travel very well."

  She heard a chuckle, then, and pleasant hearing it was, low and honestly amused.

  "I can see that travel might present problems," he said. "What am I to do? Bow?"

  "Indeed not. Merely put your hand, so, against the trunk, and let us see what will happen."

  * * *

  The garden breeze brought immediate relief to his aching head and queasy stomach. He considered the plants that grudgingly allowed their passage along the stone walk with grateful benevolence. It occurred to him that he had not been at ease–truly at ease–since he had been picked up by the Port Proctors for holding a piece of paper for his cousin Jai Kob, and thereby lost his wings.

  And hadn't the ship spun three hundred sixty degrees on its axis, when that event, which had been the low point of his life, was now revealed to be his most fortunate moment?

  The path narrowed again, and Chi stepped ahead of him, light-foot. He felt a warm hand slip 'round his, caught his breath–and let it out in a sigh.

  Hand-clasped, he followed her round a pile of living green very nearly as tall as he was, which had put forth round blue flowers easily as big as his head.

  On the other side of the bush, the path vanished, and he came to rest next to his wife on the edge of what looked to be a public park, the grass short and well-tended, and the space open. Roses rioted on edge of the clearing and to the right there was a bench placed before them. In the center of the clearing, though, was an enormous trunk. He craned his head back, and sighted along it.

  Korval's Tree.

  "You would introduce me to a tree?" he asked, though, really, the notion scarcely seemed out of the way, given the very presence of the Tree. He was very conscious of Chi's hand in his, and of the fact that the breeze in this enclosed place was slightly brisker than out in the wider garden. Wisps of blonde hair had been teased out of the loose knot at Chi's nape, and he was suddenly taken with the notion of sliding his hands into her hair, becoming complicit in its disorder; and placing his lips against the soft skin of her throat.

  Her hand tightened 'round his and she led him forward, to the very Tree itself.

  "What shall I do?" he asked her. "Bow?"

  "Indeed not. Merely put your hand, so, against the trunk, and let us see what happens."

  He did as she said, pressing his unencumbered hand flat against the bark.

  It was rough, and surprisingly warm. He felt a wave of–of happiness?–crash into and through him, and he was so delighted that he threw back his head and laughed aloud.

  He heard Chi laugh, also, through the racket of happiness, and felt her hand still warm in his. From somewhere, he heard the sound of leaves snapping, and, obedient to the prompting of the joyful presence all about, he stepped back, and raised his free hand, palm up.

  Next to him, Chi had done the same, and they each caught a round, green. . .seed pod, he thought. . .at the same instant.

  The uproaring welcome faded, leaving him bouyed with anticipation, he turned, to see her eyes sparkling; the loosened tendrils of her hair moving softly about her face, scandalously stroking cheeks and brow and. . .

  He swallowed and brought the pod up.

  "What is this?"

  "This," she announced, sounding as breathlessly delighted as he felt, "is a rare treat indeed! I wager you have never had the like. Here –"

  She held her hand up, showing him the pod on her palm. Perhaps she blew on it. Perhaps she had squeezed it when she'd caught it.

  In any case, the pod merely. . .fell open, revealing a nut nestled in each quarter.

  "We eat them," she said, and without further explanation, slipped a portion of nut into her mouth.

  He looked down at his hand, to find that his pod, too, had fallen open, and the aroma of the nuts made him realize all his hunger at once.

  He all but snatched up the first piece, managing not to cram it into his mouth. It was–he had never. . .

  It was perfect.

  He ate the second piece, and it, too, was perfection; as was the third.

  The fourth. . .he hesitated, and looked into her brilliant blue eyes.
>
  "This," he said, holding it toward her; "is yours."

  She smiled and raised her hand.

  "And this," she murmured, "is yours."

  She stepped forward, and he did, each lifting the treat to the other's lips. Warmth filled him, and surety; his loins were beyond warm, and he stepped forward again, or she did. He thrust his fingers into the silly knot, freeing silken strands for the breeze to make merry with, as he bent to press his mouth to the base of her throat, feeling her fingers tracing down his chest, and his robe–her robe. . .Gods, she felt so good.

  She made a soft growling sound, and pulled his head down to her breast.

  * * *

  Some time later, they lay together at the base of the Tree, the grass as soft as any mattress while they learned each other, and learned themselves, and cried out in joyous release.

  Chi woke. . .later, to find the Tree park filled with a gentle glow, and a blanket of leaves cast over them like a quilt. Fer Gun lay with his head on her breast, and she was of no mind to move him, or to rise and go into the house.

  She settled her chin atop his head, closed her eyes. Above them, the wind moved through the leaves in a lullaby.

  Chi went back to sleep.

  V

  The good ship Comet, out of Chonselta, Liad, belied her name somewhat, erring on the side of dependable and everyday, rather than on flash and glitter. She was patient with two pilots who continually tried her, teasing out her strengths and her limits; unapologetic when they confirmed that she was not a scout ship, for they had also found that she was not a garbage scow. A working small trader, that was all and everything that she claimed to be, and that was, in fact, exactly what she was.

  Pilot Fer Gun pen'Uldra proved to be something other than Chi had had anticipated, given his scores, his Guild test ratings, and his speed. Oh, he was everything that was quick and knowing at the board–that she had expected. But she had not expected Fer Gun pen'Uldra to be patient with the limits of so pedestrian a vessel. She had, in fact, rather rather thought that he would chafe under those limits, perhaps show a bit of temper, and even some disdain for work-a-day Comet, so far beneath his abilities.