by Sharon Lee
“Jeeves, are you able to increase that image?”
“One moment, please.”
The image grew, until he could clearly see the Laughing Cat logo Bechimo displayed, and also the pod, which was, gods—
“That’s a ship she’s got lashed on there,” Miri said, and turned sharply toward him, most probably having felt his mingled excitement and disbelief through their link.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
He could scarcely move his eyes from the ship, the impossible ship lashed like cargo to the outside mounts of a vessel almost as unlikely…
Chill worry washed against his amazement, reminding him that his lifemate had asked a question.
“Wrong?” he murmured. “There is nothing wrong, cha’trez. Only we have now been given the reason for Theo’s insistence that she land ‘close to me.’”
He took a breath, eyes still on the screen.
“That ship…Jeeves, have you a translation of the name of the ship being carried, or shall I hazard a guess?”
“The name is rendered in something like—though not very like—Yxtrang. Any translation I might attempt would also fall under the rubric of guess.”
“Ah. Well, then. Let the stakes book show my wager—that the ship our sister is bringing to us bears the name Spiral Dance.”
“That,” said Jeeves, after a long pause, “is a very old name.”
“Indeed. Older even than our arrival in this universe. One presumes that Bechimo’s source of teapots has expanded its offerings.”
“That’s a pre-Exodus ship?” Miri asked.
“I offer only my best guess,” Val Con said, finally moving his gaze from the screen to her face. “Would you like to hazard one of your own?”
“My commander told me never to bet against a Liaden,” she answered absentmindedly, staring upward in her turn.
Val Con waited. Miri had been studying Korval’s Diaries, as a delm must. Spiral Dance had significance for her, as the ship owned by his many-times-great Grandmother Cantra yos’Phelium, in simpler times, when she had merely been a grey-trader running items that were, perhaps, not exactly illegal into and out of ports chancier even than Surebleak had been.
She also knew that Spiral Dance had been lost in the other universe, before the Great Migration had gotten properly under way.
Miri looked away from the screen and met his eyes.
“You think Theo’s bringing it here because it’s a clan ship?” she asked. “Does she have that much family history?”
“Perhaps not. However, she has resources available to her. Bechimo will certainly have records, and Pilot O’Berin has proven himself to be a student of—”
Green static blew through his mind, breaking his thoughts into a hundred dancing, joyous sprites; he saw—a tree. A tree in a pot, wires and crash blankets supporting it inside a snug alcove all its own. Once again, the white dragon soared between the stars, and there was the impression of small furriness; of age and wisdom.
“Val Con!” Miri’s voice was sharp over the dancing riot in his mind. He snatched at it, snatched at the song of her, strong and steady beneath the racket, and wrapped it about himself like a shielding cloak.
“Stop!” he said—or meant to say, the Tree’s exultation deafening even his outer ears. “I must be able to think!”
The racket subsided somewhat, until it was no more noticeable than a jet engine in full throat.
He came to himself with hands planted on the edge of the buffet, Miri’s arm around his waist.
“How’s it going, Cory?” she murmured in Benish.
“Well,” he managed in the same language. “It goes well, my zhena. Now.”
“And will it continue to go well?”
He laughed, only slightly breathless.
“I believe I have made the point that, if my mind is flooded with Tree, service may be interrupted.”
“Stupid vegetable,” Miri muttered, this time in Terran.
He laughed, more fully this time, and straightened. Miri did not remove her arm, though she was no longer supporting him.
“The Tree is not a vegetable,” he pointed out.
“Well, it ain’t acting like it’s got any more wit than a carrot is all I’m saying.”
Val Con felt a green breeze whisk past him. Miri’s arm tightened, but her voice was firm.
“Don’t you get attitudinal with me! Won’t hurt you to show a little respect—and a lotta restraint! What if he’d been driving? Or flying? You might’ve killed him is what—and I ain’t having it, accazi?”
Silence greeted this. One might almost say stunned silence.
The roar of the distant jet faded entirely away, and Val Con felt what he fancied to be a flutter of contrition and a very particular scrutiny, as if the Tree were assuring itself that he was well.
“That’s better,” Miri said. “All that woulda happened this time is he’d’ve gone nosedown on the carpet if I hadn’t caught him. Lucky I was by. I ain’t always by, note.”
Another wave of contrition, perhaps tempered with respect, before the Tree withdrew entirely from his consciousness.
There came a commotion of large boots in the hallway. Miri sighed and removed her arm from around his waist, which left him feeling rather foolishly bereft. He sent another glance at the screen. The countdown at the bottom corner gave landing time in less than a local hour.
“Sounds like our assistants are here,” Miri said, as Diglon Rifle entered the parlor and stood to one side for Nelirikk.
Val Con waved a hand at the screen.
“This ship will be landing in our back field very soon. Captain Waitley specifically requested Nelirikk’s presence and my own. Our captain claims the right to attend me.”
“I had suspected as much,” Nelirikk said gravely. “Diglon will stand for the captain’s honor.”
* * *
Bechimo’s hull glowed faintly in Surebleak’s midnight dark, casting a pale shadow on the rough local grass. At this hour, Val Con knew, the moons would have set and Chuck-Honey, the double star, would be dominating Surebleak’s sparse starfield. Not that the starfield, or Chuck-Honey, were visible at this particular moment, Jeeves having taken it upon himself to make sure that the landing site was illuminated so well that one wished for protective lenses.
He and Nelirikk made a first line, not standing so near that they presented a single target. Miri and Diglon were a dozen steps to the rear, over her vociferous objections.
“I would like my sister to see me first, and Nelirikk, so that she will know that we have obeyed her instructions to the least letter,” he said.
Miri shook her head.
“Ain’t gonna let her off easy, are you?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Is there some reason why I should?”
“You put it that way, not one that I can think of,” she said cheerfully, and dropped back to stand with Diglon.
“Bechimo reports that he will open his hatch in point-three-oh seconds. Captain Waitley will be the first to debark,” Jeeves said quietly.
“Thank you,” Val Con said, and at that moment, the hatch lifted to reveal a sensibly dim interior from which a slim shadow emerged, walking deliberately. Pale hair tangled with light blew ’round her shoulders as she approached.
* * * * *
“Wait for my order,” the captain told the two tall figures. “I’ll explain it to him first, so he won’t be surprised.”
“A rare courtesy,” the administrative officer commented from his lean beside the galley door, “to a man you’ve just roused in the middle of his night.”
Theo frowned, her temper not improved by the fact that he was speaking Liaden, just so he could pack in all the edges and points that sentence could bear—nor by the realization that he was right. Val Con had sounded a bit…sharp. They should’ve maybe waited until it was nearer to breakfast time, but—
“We called ahead,” she said, voice snapping, “and we’re running close to
the deadline.”
Clarence inclined his head, Liaden-wise, which was intended to set another dagger or two into her, and Theo was just about to ask if he didn’t have anything useful to do, when it occurred to her that he might not just be amusing himself, but warning her about how she could expect to be greeted by her brother.
She flashed him another frown. He grinned at her, straightened out of his lean, bowed slightly, and left the galley.
Theo turned back to Chernak and Stost.
“Bechimo will convey my order when it’s time for you to come forward. Do you understand me?”
“Captain,” said Chernak gravely. “We await your order.”
“Right,” she said, and before she could repeat herself again, Bechimo spoke.
“Theo, I am opening the hatch.”
* * *
The field was bright—brighter than it had seemed on Bechimo’s screens. Theo squinted, just making out four shadows—mixed tall and less tall—standing a little distance from the base of the ramp.
Four? she thought, hesitating at the end of the ramp.
Of course four, she told herself. Miri would’ve absolutely come with Val Con, especially if he was as irritable as Clarence seemed to think he had a right to be; and Nelirikk would have brought his own backup—Diglon or Hazenthull, going by the tall factor. That was good, actually. Two for two.
“Jeeves, is it possible to achieve a less punishing brilliance?” Val Con asked from inside the glare. “It is not our purpose to blind the pilot.”
“Certainly, Master Val Con,” Jeeves answered from somewhere to Theo’s left. “My apologies, Captain Waitley.”
The light dimmed, mellowing from white to yellow. The shadows melted into Val Con and Nelirikk, standing nearest the ramp, and Miri, just moving up to stand beside her lifemate, Diglon a couple steps behind her.
“Thank you,” Theo said to the field in general, and stepped off the ramp, walking straight up to her brother.
He was wearing a high-necked sweater, dark trousers, and boots, a cold-weather coat open over the sweater. It gave her a little start to see that he wasn’t wearing his pilot’s jacket.
He didn’t look particularly irritated, but, then, Father hardly ever looked irritated—and never less so than when he was. Miri, her hands tucked into pockets, mostly seemed amused.
“Theo,” he said.
Val Con had lifted an eyebrow, and that was trouble, right there. Best to grab the initiative before she lost any more counters.
She bowed slightly to a point exactly between him and Miri.
“Brother, sister, please forgive me for waking you untimely,” she said, Bechimo pushing the Liaden words in the proper mode into the front of her mind. She recognized Low Liaden, which was spoken between kin and good friends, though she couldn’t reliably hit it, especially when she was nervous. Which, she admitted—just to herself and Bechimo—she was.
“You pled necessity, I believe,” Val Con murmured, not exactly encouraging, but at least giving her room to explain herself.
“I did,” she admitted. “Necessity—several times over. Still, I ought to have been more gentle of your own requirements.”
“Multiple necessities?” Both eyebrows were up now. “Theo, you do me too much honor.”
She sighed.
“I really am sorry,” she said in Terran. “It’s not like I planned it.”
Miri laughed.
“They just sorta pile up, don’t they?” she said. “Noticed it myself.”
Still grinning, she nodded.
“It’s good to see you, Theo, though you’re right that the hour could’ve been better. Is there a reason you wanted us all out here for this, ’stead of inside, where there’s tea and what’s liable to be a three-course formal meal, if we give Mrs. ana’Tak much more time in the kitchen?”
“Well…yes.” Theo bit her lip. “I—that is.”
She stopped and took a breath, the…well, the speech…she’d worked out in her head suddenly seeming much less clear than it might be, to somebody who hadn’t been there…
“How many necessities, I wonder?” Val Con asked softly.
She looked into his face.
“Three.”
“An agreeable number. Which was the first to overtake you?”
“Well—the ship.” She gestured toward the pod mount. “It came out of—out of the same place Bechimo caught that teapot I showed you.”
Val Con nodded.
She sighed, suddenly feeling calmer, which could’ve been Bechimo’s doing—or her nerves steadying themselves, now that they were on course.
Inner calm, she told herself, and took another breath.
“Bechimo and Joyita figured the name was something like Spiral Dance, which—if it was—Clarence said she belonged to Clan Korval. We boarded; there wasn’t any crew…only—a tree, in a pot, strapped into the copilot’s chair. We moved it over and put it in ’ponics. Kara says it’s doing fine; grown some, even. The ship—” She took a deep breath.
“Bechimo wouldn’t risk the Struven aboard, which is why we locked her onto cargo rails.”
“I understand. So, the first necessity is explained. We may leave the ship where it is for now. What next befell you?”
“Next…” she looked at Nelirikk, who gazed down at her impassively, then back to Val Con.
“Next,” she said, “another ship came through—the wreck of another ship came through,” she corrected herself.
“There were survivors, and we—we picked them up.”
Val Con closed his eyes.
“Survivors?” said Miri. “Soldiers or civilians?”
She took a hand out of her pocket and wove her fingers through Val Con’s. He opened his eyes.
Theo looked at them doubtfully, but Miri gave her a grin and a nod, so she told out the rest.
“One civilian—Grakow, the ship’s cat. The other two—they’re not soldiers. Not exactly soldiers. They’re pathfinders…and—they…”
She stopped and blew her bangs out of her eyes. It had been her intention to tell this tale fully, to do justice to Chernak and Stost, but—she’d gotten all these people out of bed at an unreasonable hour; they were cold and cranky, which truthfully, if it had been turnabout, she’d have been, too. Maybe it was best to summarize.
“Making it short,” she said, mostly to Miri, “they—from their perspective, they’d just left a war zone. Their enemy—what they call ‘the Enemy’—was winning, and they—and everybody else—were…running away.
“Their orders, if they happened to survive the retreat, were to reunite with their Troop or, if that wasn’t an option, to offer their service to a ranking civilian authority.”
“Surely, Korval is not a ranking civilian authority,” Val Con said. “Unless you mean us to transport them to Temp Headquarters?”
“Er—no. They—they say that the Yxtrang…”
She shot a glance at Nelirikk. Still impassive. Waiting. Diglon, at his back, was also waiting.
“They say that the—the now-Yxtrang aren’t…their…Troop,” Theo finished, omitting Chernak’s exact opinion, which had included the word pirates among others that were considerably less polite. “Since you have a corps of Yx—of former Yxtrang in your service, I thought…”
“I see,” Val Con said before she could say exactly what she had thought. “Please do not vex yourself to provide a fuller explanation at this moment. Are these persons quite civilized, or have you brought them to us in chains?”
“What? Oh, no! They’re civilized! Real quick learners, too!”
“You relieve me,” he said politely.
“Hevelin likes them, too,” Theo continued, then recalled that Val Con might not be completely informed on that front, either.
“Hevelin is the norbear ambassador, certified by the Pilots Guild. He—he met Father, and—I think—Pilot Caylon, too.”
“Did he indeed? What a very small universe we live in.” Val Con considered her. “Am I correct
that we have now attained your three necessities?”
“Um…no. There’s one more thing.”
“And it is…?”
“There’s a Scout—a team of Scouts. They collect Old Tech and—destroy it. They—well, they want to confiscate Bechimo. They say they have a warrant, and that the only way we can avoid confiscation is by an appeal to a higher-ranking Scout. So, I said I’d meet them here and that I would abide by your—by Scout Commander yos’Phelium’s—judgment.”
There was a pause that felt long. Very long.
“This Scout who leads a team of Scouts,” Val Con said at last. “His name and rank?”
“Captain yos’Thadi of Chandra Marudas. First mate is Menolly vas’Anamac.” She consulted Bechimo’s clock and added: “They’ll likely be here tomorrow and—Captain yos’Thadi isn’t going to be real happy, since we beat him into port.”
“On top of all, a wager.”
Val Con looked to Miri.
“Cha’trez, I believe that I shall return to active duty. You will do Korval honor, I know.”
“Oh, c’mon; this’ll be fun.”
“Do you say so?”
“I do. Look—I’ll start.”
Miri grinned at Theo.
“You wanna call your pair out, so Nelirikk can get a look at ’em?”
“Yes,” she said, and saw a quick glimpse of the galley in the space behind her eyes, Chernak and Stost rising to their feet and walking, Stost in the lead, down the hall toward the hatch.
“Their names are Chernak and Stost,” she said to Nelirikk. “They speak Trade.”
“With the captain’s permission,” he said.
“Sort ’em out,” Miri told him. “For the best good of Korval.”
He saluted.
“Rifle, attend me.”
“Explorer.”
They approached the ramp, Nelirikk a step ahead of Diglon, and waited for the two long shadows who had just stepped out of the hatch. Each had a case slung over one shoulder.
“What’s in the cases?” Miri asked.
“I don’t know,” Theo confessed. “I think they’re supposed to give the cases—and their service—to…”
“The ranking civilian authority. Naturally.” Val Con finished and looked to Miri, who showed him her free hand, fingers folded into palm, one thumb up—pilot’s sign for all good.
