by Sharon Lee
“I, too,” Val Con said from her side, and his voice was rougher than polite Liaden discourse allowed. “I, too, regret. There is not a day nor a night that passes, when I do not regret. Necessity is a cold comrade, and takes no care for lives, or joy.”
Silence, growing longer.
tez’Oty moved his eyes first.
“I accept your—apology,” he said, and turned blindly to one side, fumbling the knife onto the table.
“Do you expect me to believe,” vin’Daza said to Val Con, “that you will stand there and allow me to cut your throat?”
“No,” he said, matter-of-fact, now. “Neither of us believes that. I am trained in hand-to-hand; I know very well how to disarm an opponent armed with a knife and a desire to end me. Also, while my life has no more value, objectively, than your life, or your lover’s, I have work, and purpose. I can, alive, improve the universe in some few small ways, and therefore bring it closer to the ideal of Balance.”
He took a breath, and turned his hands palm up.
“If it were me with a dead lover, a knife in my hand, and a decision to make, I would take into account that a cut throat is a quick death, while a lifetime of regret may come more near to matching your own pain.”
Silence, then a turn to place the knife on the table with a small, decisive snick.
“Live then,” she said harshly, “and regret.”
“Qe’andra,” she said, over her shoulder.
“Yes, Ms. vin’Daza. May I serve you?”
“You will write the appropriate paper. When it is ready, please send it to our lodgings so that we may sign. We will, of course, pay your fee. Please do this quickly, as we intend to leave this terrible world within the next two days, if we have to walk away.”
“I understand,” said Ms. kaz’Ineo.
• • • • • •
It was snowing. Outside the breakfast parlor’s window there was only a rippling sheet of white. The Road Boss’s office was closed for weather, as were all other non-essential businesses.
That was the new Surebleak, Miri reflected, staring out the window, half-hypnotized by the blizzard. The old Surebleak, there hadn’t been any such thing as closing for weather. What would be the sense in that? Only thing Surebleak could be said to have was weather.
“Good morning, cha’trez.” Val Con slipped into the chair she’d put next to her, so they could go snowblind together. “I hope I have not kept you waiting long.”
“Just long enough to have my first cup of coffee,” she told him, with a smile, showing him the empty cup. “Perfect timing.”
“I agree.”
“What was the emergency?”
“Not so much an emergency,” he said. “Nova merely wished to be certain that I had seen Lady yo’Lanna’s most recent letter. Shall you like more coffee? A cheese roll, perhaps?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, though she still had to control the twitch that said he shouldn’t be waiting on her. It was getting easier. Another twenty years or so, she’d have it completely under control.
When fresh coffee and tea and a plate of various breakfast edibles was on the table between them, she brought the letter back up.
“Lot of good gossip?”
“Lady yo’Lanna’s letters are always a rich resource,” he murmured, his eyes on the white-filled window. “Much of it will require closer study, as we now live so far removed from society, but the bits which are immediately comprehensible would seem to be that the Council of Clans has issued a new statement to its member-delms regarding the state of the entity known as Clan Korval, seated on Surebleak.
“It would seem that this entity has been forgiven all and any damages it might have caused to the planet of Liad, or disruption it may have perpetuated upon the common good. Further, if any individual persons feel that they are owed Balance in the matter of those actions which the entity Clan Korval brought against Liad, they are to apply to the Grievance Committee at ber’Lyn and her’With.”
Miri blinked.
“That’s—quite a come-about,” she commented.
“As you say. It is well to reflect what outrage may accomplish, when turned toward the common good.”
“What’s the next bit?” Miri asked, after her cup was empty again, and the breakfast plate, too.
“Hmm?”
He pulled his gaze from the window with an obvious effort.
“Ah, Lady yo’Lanna. She plans a visit. In fact, she expects to be with us within the season, as she has commissioned a Scout at leave to bring her to us.”
Miri eyed him.
“Us?”
He turned his head to smile at her.
“Us.” He extended a finger to trace the line of her cheek.
“Only think, cha’trez; we shall shortly be in a position to learn from a master.”
“I don’t think I can possibly keep up.”
“Nonsense, you are merely fatigued with staring out at all this weather.”
“You got something better to do?”
He smiled into her eyes.
“Why, yes; I do.”
Due Diligence
In a universe where one wrong brush with the law can ruin your life and bad manners can get you killed, the question of who you accept as a bed-partner—and why—can have a certain piquant challenge to it. The challenge becomes more difficult when you’re from one of the most important clans in the galaxy, and need something very special, indeed.
****
I
“For attachment to a criminal endeavor designed to disrupt the operations of this port, evidenced by signed papers recovered, Fer Gun pen’Uldra is fined two cantra, to be assessed from future earnings. Should there be no such earnings within one Standard Year, the amount will be deducted from Fer Gun pen’Uldra’s accrued Guild dues, and his name shall be struck from the rolls.”
That was steep, that was, Fer Gun thought, his belly tight and his breath coming short and shallow. Two cantra? Still, he was a Jump pilot—a damned good Jump pilot, as he needn’t say himself, since the record supported him—he might be able to find a berth—
“In addition,” Solcintra Pilots Guild Master continued, “Fer Gun pen’Uldra’s license to pilot is suspended for one Standard year. After such time, he shall be eligible for reinstatement when a pilot in good standing testifies on behalf of Fer Gun pen’Uldra before the Guild, and guarantees his good behavior as a pilot for the following Standard Year.”
It was as if a fist had slammed into his belly. For a moment, he couldn’t see; couldn’t breathe. They were taking his license! He was—a two cantra fine, and his license suspended? How—
“Fer Gun pen’Uldra,” said the guildmaster. “Do you have anything further to say?”
Say? What could he say? That it hadn’t been his signature on the damned paper? Of course, it had been his signature. That he hadn’t any notion what his cousin Jai Kob had in mind to do on—or to—Solcintra Port? That he was a pilot, that was all and everything he’d ever wanted to be? His cousins did their business; his was to fly them where business called.
He managed a breath.
“No, sir.” His voice was firm, if subdued. “Nothing further to say.”
The guildmaster looked to the port proctor standing at the corner of the table. The proctor stepped to Fer Gun’s side, her face impassive.
“Fer Gun pen’Uldra, relinquish your license to the Pilots Guild. When the terms are met, it will be returned to you.”
There was black at the edges of his vision. His license. Turn over his license to this blank-faced flunky? He would die before he did anything so daft! For a moment, indeed, he thought he would turn over his fist and make a run—
But that was no good, he told himself. The Guild would blacklist the license, then, and he’d be in worse case than he stood right now.
So.
“It’s in the jacket,” he told the proctor and his voice was nowhere near steady, now. “Inside right breast pocket.”
&n
bsp; “Understood,” she answered, and watched while he slid his hand inside his jacket, and fingered the card—his license to fly—out of the hidden pocket, and offered it to her between two fingers.
She received it without comment, and returned to her place at the corner of the table.
The guildmaster inclined his head.
“Fer Gun pen’Uldra, you may go.”
• • • • • •
Well, and he’d gone—of course he had. An overnight in the holding cell had been plenty enough for him. It might fairly be said that having no place to go was a superior situation.
Out on the port, he paused to get his bearings, acutely aware of the absence of his flight card. Not that it had weighed so much, but knowing it was gone created an imbalance in the fit of his jacket.
He took a breath, then another, ignoring the rumbling in his stomach. They hadn’t fed him in the holding cell. They might have done, if he had asked, but it hadn’t occurred to him to ask them for anything.
What he wanted now was Lady Graz, though Jai Kob’s welcome for a wingless pilot was not likely to be warm. His value had been in his license. Remove that single value and he was only the dim-witted singleton, dependent on Telrune’s charity. It was entirely possible that his cousins would leave him here, once they found his situation.
Fer Gun squared his shoulders.
Well, then. They need not know his situation. It was his business, wasn’t it? Oh, he would definitely cite the two-cantra fine at Jai Kob, so he would! But the loss of his ticket . . .
It came to him that his skill had not been taken from him. He was still a pilot, and a damned good one, wherever his license reposed. Granted, he could not record his flight-time, and he would therefore not advance in the Guild.
But, he could still pilot a spaceship.
Jai Kob need not know that Fer Gun had lost his license.
He had his bearings, now, and turned east, toward the edge-yard where they’d brought the Lady down, and locked her. His stomach complained as he moved into a quick walk. He ignored it.
• • • • • •
“Oh,” said the dockman wisely, when Fer Gun arrived at the office, to find the board listing only three ships. “You’ve come about the quick-hire, have you? You’re only a half-day too late. They meant quick, they did, and they weren’t particular, either. Took the first good card that walked in the door.”
Fer Gun stared at him.
“Lady Graz,” he said slowly, to be certain he understood; “she’s lifted?”
“That’s right,” the dockman said. “Regular pilot walked out soon as they hit port. Found a better opportunity, I’ll wager. That knife cuts both ways, though, on Solcintra. The owners didn’t have any trouble at all, hiring new.”
“Thank you,” Fer Gun said, feeling the absence of his license like a blade through his heart. He took a breath.
“Is there somewhere nearby where I might . . . buy a beer?”
• • • • • •
Teetering on the edge of the Low Port, the bar was called Wingman’s Folly, and the beer was cheap for a reason. The few coins in his pocket might even, Fer Gun thought, stretch to a bowl of soup, though if the food were equal to the quality of the beer . . .
Wingless and broke, near enough; and Jai Kob had set it up; had deliberately schemed to remove the idiot cousin.
And that, Fer Gun told himself, taking a cautious sip of his so-called beer, was what came of asking questions. They had not been deep questions; they had not been questions inappropriate to a pilot, though they had touched—lightly!—on the business Jai Kob conducted, with Cousin Vin Dyr’s able assistance.
Two questions, and he had rendered himself a liability, abandoned to the mercies of the port proctors and the Guild, without money, without kin, without contacts, his only means of making a living residing by now in a safe at Guild Headquarters . . .
Jai Kob might not have known that they would take his license, Fer Gun told himself. And, in truth, Jai Kob’s knowledge of the universe was not in his queue of immediate worries. Those included finding some sort of food, a bed, and work.
Work ought to be possible, he told himself, nursing his beer. He was strong; he had a good head for numbers. He could take orders—gods, couldn’t he just! In any wise, he could work, and he would work. The important thing was not to slip over the line from Mid-Port to Low. He was accounted good in a fight, but he had no illusions regarding the odds of near-term survival on Low Port for a single, partnerless pilot, wearing spaceleather and a good pair of boots.
The thing then was to go right when he left the Wingman—up to Mid-Port, Low Port at his back. He’d ask at the docks and the warehouses, first. Long-term would be good, but day-labor would do. The first priorities were to feed himself, and find that bed . . .
“More beer, Pilot?”
The barkeep was young and pretty, and it passed through Fer Gun’s mind that he might, if he were clever, flirt his way into a bed for a night—or even several.
The idea hung there for a moment, before he rejected it. What could a lad—even a pretty lad who doubtless commanded pretty tips?—earn in such a place, situated as it was? Enough to feed and shelter himself, and a hungry pilot, too?
“No more beer, I thank you,” he said, putting more of his coins than he ought on the bar.
“Come again, Pilot,” the ’keeper said, and swept away to tend the other custom.
Fer Gun slid off his stool, and headed for the door, standing back as it swung open, then stepping forward.
“Going so soon?” A woman’s voice spoke very nearly in his ear. “I thought you might share a glass with me.”
The mode was Comrade, the voice unfamiliar. As was the face, when he turned to look at her.
The first thing he noticed was her height—taller than he was, which wasn’t usual. She wore a Jump pilot’s jacket, scarred and soft with wear. Her hair was blonde, pulled back into a knot at her nape; her face sharp; her eyes blue. Not a beauty, though she could pass. There was something about her drew and held the eye. She was also, he saw on third look, older than he was. Considerably so.
“Pilot,” he said, giving her Comrade, because were not all pilots comrades? “Pilot, I do not know you.”
“And I do not know you!” she said with a broad grin. “That is why we ought to drink a glass together, and perhaps share a small meal. They put together a very edible cheese plate here, for which I vouch.”
He hesitated, which was pure madness. If the blonde pilot had a fancy for a younger bedmate, then she was the answer to tonight’s problem, at least.
And if she were a thief, or part of a wolf pack, she would, he thought with a certain amount of irony, shortly be very disappointed in him.
So.
“Thank you,” he said, inclining his head.
“Excellent—here!” She guided him to a table well-back from the door, and Fer Gun marked how those at the bar kept their backs to the room, while those at table did not look up. “Sit—sit!” said his new comrade. “I will order.”
She threw a hand in the air. The pretty ’tender looked up as if he had heard the gesture, ducked out from behind the bar, and walked briskly toward their table.
“Service, Pilot?” he asked.
She smiled at him, and bespoke a bottle, two glasses and a “nuncheon plate,” to share between comrades.
The boy bowed, and left them, whereupon the blonde pilot flowed bonelessly into the chair across from him and folded her hands on the tabletop.
“My name is Chi,” she said, with an informality that might yet equally come from a pilot shopping a bedmate, or a wolf casing a mark.
“My name is Fer Gun,” he answered, matching her tone.
“In fact your name is Fer Gun pen’Uldra,” she said calmly. “I have a proposition to put before you.”
“No!” he snapped, shoving the chair back—and freezing on the way to his feet, staring down at her hand on his wrist.
“Will y
ou not even hear it?” she asked.
Her grip was firm, but not painful. It was, in fact, very nearly a comrade’s touch. He raised his eyes to meet hers, finding a sort of amused kindness in her face.
“I will not go grey—or dark,” he growled.
“All honor to you,” she said lightly. “My proposal is nothing to tarnish your melant’i.”
She paused, brows contracting somewhat.
“There are those who might argue the point, but I think they need not concern us.”
“Let me go,” he said, though he could have easily broken her grip.
She did so on the instant, and inclined her head.
“Forgive me.”
He took a breath, thinking he would rise and leave her, after all—but here came the ’tender, bearing a full tray. The plate came down between them; the bottle went to the fair-haired pilot, and the glasses, too.
Fer Gun’s stomach loudly reminded him of the recent abuses visited upon it—and was it not Balance, to eat the pilot’s food and drink her wine, while he listened to her proposal?
“Thank you,” she said to ’tender, and poured the wine, offering Fer Gun the first glass.
He waited until she had poured her own, inclined his head and sipped, finding the wine far superior to the beer. Apparently, Pilot Chi had deep pockets, which would account for her thinking she might order all to her liking.
“Eat,” she said, and reached to the plate herself.
He did the same, and at his stomach’s prompting twice more before he recalled that he was in company, and folded his arms on the tabletop.
“In its simplest form,” Pilot Chi murmured, “my proposition is this: I require a child.”
Fer Gun did not choke, but it was a near thing. He studied his comrade’s arresting face, and found no hint of mockery, or madness, only a clear-eyed earnestness.
“Why not go to Festival?” he asked.
“A reasonable question. I seek to avoid notoriety . . .”
She paused, and again there was that quizzical, and slightly self-mocking expression.
“Additional notoriety. And, sadly, Festival-get will not answer my purpose, though it would seem, as you say, the simplest solution. The child must arrive properly by contract, above reproach and unexceptional in the eyes of the world. Also, I fear that I require a pilot to stand father, and I see from your records that you are a very fine pilot, indeed.”