by Sharon Lee
He blinked.
“My records? How did you see my records?”
“Ah. I have access to the Guild files.”
He took a breath.
“That must be expensive,” he said, trying to match her tone of calm nonchalance.
“Not at all.”
She plucked a tidbit from the tray, and popped it into her mouth.
Fer Gun took a breath.
“If you’ve seen my records, you have seen that I am convicted of crimes against the port, and have had my wings clipped for it. I may fly again when I produce two cantra to pay my fine, and also a witness to my reformed character.”
“Yes. Your cousins are very clever, are they not?”
He considered her.
“If you’re looking for brains in addition to reactions, you’ll want to shop elsewhere.”
“No, I do not allow you to be stupid, merely naive. Naivety may be mended.”
A sip of wine, and a glint of blue eyes. Fer Gun ate another bit of cheese, and a round of bread, washed down with a careful sip of wine.
Putting his glass aside, he leaned toward Pilot Chi.
“Clan Telrune is outworld, and Low House. We’re scoundrels, in a word, and, so I learn, there is not even honor among kinsmen.”
“If it comes to that, my own clan not infrequently throws out rogues. We do better by our kin than Telrune would seem to do, but, then, we are much poorer in cousins. I do not wish to rush you, Pilot, but may I know if you find my proposal of any interest?”
He sipped his wine, considering.
In well-ordered clans, as even he knew, he would at this juncture place the matter in the hands of his delm. As Telrune was nothing like well-ordered, and there being no gain to the clan in breeding him, the last pen’Uldra, he supposed he might make his own decision in the case. After all, the proposed child would remain with Pilot Chi, and burden Telrune not at all. Unlike himself, who was, as Aunt Jezmin often said, nothing more than another mouth to feed, useless as all his Line had been, and luck he’d been born able to least to think with his fingers, since his brain was only a hindrance to him.
There might, perhaps, be something in the business for Telrune, should Pilot Chi prove to be of a clan useful to the delm’s on-going schemes. But the truth was that Telrune’s focus was scheming. He had never, in Fer Gun’s memory, negotiated a contract for alliance—or for any other thing. Mostly, his kin allied as suited themselves; babies were born, and came into the House haphazard, though Telrune did, often, remember to record their names.
In the case of the proposal before him . . . he found himself largely neutral. The issue would be no concern of his. And if it came to the pilot herself, his proposed contract-wife, she looked likely to give good sport in bed. There was that tendency to order all to her own satisfaction, but he was accustomed to have someone else do his thinking for him, now wasn’t he?
And among orderly Houses, he thought, his wine glass arrested on its way to his lips, as he suddenly recalled a custom he had never truly learned . . . In proper clans, contract-spouses were given a payout, once the conditions of the contract were met. It might be that Pilot Chi represented the manner in which he might pay his fine. Also, it would fall to Pilot Chi’s clan to feed him, and clothe him, and shelter him during the term of the contract. In that free year, then, he might order his affairs, make contacts, find work . . .
“I am prepared,” Pilot Chi said quietly, “to be generous.”
He stared at her.
“To Telrune?”
That drew a smile.
“To yourself, though of course Telrune must be accommodated in such a way that the contract does not reflect badly upon the child.”
“That’s an extra-size lot of respectability you’re wanting,” he pointed out. “I did say we’re scoundrels.”
“You did. But I’ve no objection to scoundrels, being one myself. What I must have is the seeming of propriety. We will do the thing properly, for the sake of the child, who must be able to deal from a solid foundation.”
She picked up the bottle and refreshed their glasses.
“What do you think, Pilot?”
He sipped his wine, and did think, for a wonder and a novelty, before meeting her eyes once more.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that I will need to know who you are, Pilot. You have the key to my life, but I know nothing of you.”
“Fairly said.”
She seemed to square her shoulders under the worn leather, and met his eyes firmly.
“I am Chi yos’Phelium Clan Korval.”
The floor bucked, and he nearly lost his glass.
Korval.
Everything was illuminated by her name: access to the Guild database, her need of a pilot-father; the necessity of proper adherence to the forms.
“Surely,” he managed, his voice breathless in his own ears, “you can do better, Pilot.”
She laughed at that and held her hand out to him.
“Do you now? I think that you and I will get on extremely.”
He looked from her face to that hand, slim and strong. She was a clever woman; she was older and more experienced than he; it was, he reminded himself, an opportunity.
“I think so, too,” he said. And met her hand.
II
Petrella yos’Galan came to the end of the file, flipped to the photo, sighed, and spun the chair so that she faced her twin, leaning with arms crossed against the corner of the desk.
“Well,” she said, “he’s not in the common way.”
Chi half-laughed.
“No, he’s barely tamed; and now that he’s learnt to distrust kin, he’s well on the way to ruination.” She tipped her head.
“Wine?”
“Of your kindness.”
Chi straightened out of her lean, and crossed the room. Petrella looked once more at the flat-pic on her screen.
A young man, rangy and rough, with unruly dark hair tangled ’round a fierce, bony face. The eyes alone would slay dozens, black as space and hard as obsidian.
Yet, among all this ferocity, there was a hint of sweetness ’round the mouth; a barely perceptible softness in the jutting chin. Not ruined yet, she thought, but wary as a cat, and dangerous.
Chi was of course fully capable, but it had never been her habit to bed dangerously.
A breath of air alerted her, and she moved her eyes from the screen to her sister’s face, and received the wine from her hand.
Silently, they lifted their glasses, and drank in unison. Chi sighed.
“His piloting record—” she began . . .
“Is astonishing,” Petrella finished. They were identical twins from a clan which had given many to the dramliz over the generations. Often, they did not even need to speak aloud. More often, they finished each other’s thoughts seamlessly.
“But is it enough?” Chi asked the question Petrella had not.
She leaned over and touched the screen, calling up the boy’s record.
“Won a scholarship to Anlingdin, despite the deplorable condition of his House,” she murmured. “Graduated early from an accelerated course; ’prenticed on a Looper for the long-side, and mastered Jump before he came twenty-four.”
“Whereupon his delm called him home, and his troubles began.” Petrella sighed this time. “You might have found someone more convenable, you know.”
“And young Fer Gun?”
Petrella hesitated.
“Mistress Toonapple often has need of pilots, and she is, so we hear, accounted a fair Boss.”
Chi raised her eyebrows.
“Are you advising me to place a pilot into Juntavas hands, Sister?” she asked.
Petrella felt a twinge of shame before her twin shook her head.
“Even if that is your advice, it won’t answer. The child himself tells me that he will not fly grey—and never dark.”
“Does he?”
Petrella tipped her head.
“That is . . . promising
,” she murmured.
“You might say it,” Chi agreed, and half-raised her glass.
“There’s more, if you’ll have it.”
“I must,” Petrella assured her, “have everything.”
“Yes, well. His cousins set him up beautifully, with that contract in hand, and his signature there for all to see. He must have become inconvenient for them, do you think? Perhaps he began asking questions. Jai Kob cho’Fadria—the elder cousin—is something more than a mere scoundrel; the other cousin—Vin Dyr—killed a man in a bar brawl on an outworld, and the proctors bought off.”
“So the cousins wanted young Fer Gun out of the way,” Petrella said, and raised her eyes to meet Chi’s gaze. “Or dead.”
“We can do better than either for him, I think,” her sister said, and raised her glass.
“As for finding someone more convenable . . .” she continued . . . “the sole Line on the homeworld which always produces a pilot is yos’Galan, and we have crossed lines too recently for that match, even if Sae Zar was willing.”
Petrella snorted.
“The mother’s twin bedding the halfling nephew. Yes, propriety would be satisfied by that.”
“It does become problematical. Young Fer Gun, on the other hand, will offend no one.”
“He will offend everyone,” Petrella corrected.
She sipped her wine, thoughtfully.
“Which comes to the same thing, I suppose.”
Chi lifted her glass in ironic salute.
Petrella reached to the screen and tapped up Pilot pen’Uldra’s picture once more.
“The Code teaches us,” she said slowly, her eyes on that space-cold gaze; “that a contract ought benefit both parties. What benefit comes to this boy by making contract with Korval? You will of course stand hostage to his wings, which for him will count for much. But, I wonder, is that enough? He is unpolished. He is, forgive me, not merely Low House, but, as he himself said to you, affiliated with a House composed entirely of rogues and petty thieves. To raise him up, even just for the length of the contract, into the brangle and spite the High Houses . . . He may survive it—he looks a hardy lad—but he will not thrive. He will make errors, possibly errors that will follow him for the rest of his life, and even if not—”
She paused, considering the tattered remnants of sweetness in the hard young face.
“Even if not,” she finished, as Chi was silent; “he will mind it, and it will cost him.”
She glanced up into her sister’s grave eyes.
“It will cost him,” she repeated.
Chi inclined her head.
“I agree,” she said, her voice as grave as her eyes. “The child cannot thrive in alt, and I will not ask it of him. I intend due diligence, and a careful Balance.”
She sipped her wine.
“We may easily, I think, manage the signing, and an afternoon meal.”
Petrella frowned slightly.
“Guests chosen from allies and aspirants,” she said slowly. “A luncheon, rather than a dinner. Bold he may be, but we do not wish to try his mettle at a full formal affair.”
“Precisely. I have it in mind to place him in Ilthiria’s hands—though, perhaps her brother would answer better . . .”
“A collaboration might serve best of all,” Petrella said, tipping her head slightly. “Give him enough polish and manner to manage the necessaries—if he’s a clever boy and keeps modestly quiet . . . Stay! Allow him to be overawed by his good fortune, and sweetly shy. That should play well.”
“My thoughts, yes. So, that Jump is made.”
“But what then?” demanded Petrella. “Will you keep the child locked in his rooms? He’s a pilot, and very nearly feral. He won’t care to be confined.”
“Certainly he would not! No, I have in mind to take him off-planet. Korval can afford to be generous. I can afford to be generous. How then a business arrangement, negotiated separately from the marriage contract, in which he becomes provisional captain of that small-trader we had been discussing last week? We shall do a tour, and I will introduce him to those who will be useful to him, returning to Liad in time to appease propriety in the matter of the child’s arrival. After, the pilot will be released to his rightful business. We might easily steer likely crew, and a trader, in his direction.”
She paused, frowning.
“I suppose I will need to retain a share. Small enough not to encumber him; large enough to deter any plans his House might nurture to wrest the enterprise away from the child and repurpose it for their own use.”
She moved her shoulders.
“dea’Gauss will contrive.”
Petrella sipped her wine, inspecting the thing from all sides. Finally, she put her glass on the desk with a decisive click.
“It will answer. Especially as I have already made arrangements to keep to Liad for the term of my own marriage, through the child’s birth.”
“And thus may stand in my place, should urgent business of the clan arise. Yes. I believe it will answer—if you are satisfied now, Sister, that the scheme will more likely benefit the child than harm him?”
“It is more than generous,” Petrella said, with feeling. “I very much hope that it will result in a new pilot for yos’Phelium.”
“If it does not,” said Chi, rising and putting her glass next to Petrella’s on the desk, “there will be your own child to take up the Ring when the time comes. Have we not already determined that yos’Galan, at least, breeds true?”
“Yes, but yos’Galan has no ambition to rise to delm,” Petrella said quellingly.
“I understand. However, if yos’Galan produces a pilot and yos’Phelium does not, we will need to rearrange ambitions, as well as expectations.”
She stretched.
“I’m away to dea’Gauss, and possibly yo’Lanna. Have you any errands I might dispatch for you in the city?”
“Thank you, no—no, stay! Where is Pilot pen’Uldra at the moment?”
“At the Pilot’s Rest in Mid-Port. I hope to have him in less perilous conditions soon. Ilthiria may take him, once dea’Gauss has drafted the marriage lines.”
“Assuming Justus agrees,” said Petrella, and Chi laughed.
“Whenever has Ilthiria’s lifemate stood against her?”
“There is that,” Petrella said, and stood to open her arms.
Her sister stepped into the embrace, and then stepped away.
“Until soon, Sister,” she said.
“Until soon.”
Petrella sighed, carried the wine glasses over to the buffet, and came back to her desk, frowning.
Something . . . there was something she was missing. Not Echieta, world of thieves that it was.
Not Telrune, certainly.
Not—was it the boy’s name?
pen’Uldra.
She sat down at the desk, frowning.
pen’Uldra.
There had been . . . surely there had been . . .
She reached to the screen, and called up the Encyclopedia of Trade.
pen’Uldra, now . . .
III
Fer Gun pen’Uldra sat in the little sunroom that had become his favorite corner at Glavda Empri. He had been the guest of Lady yo’Lanna long enough now that it no longer seemed . . . very strange that the house—the structure—had its own name, as if it were a ship or some other nobler thing than a place to sleep and sup.
Though to be sure, Glavda Empri housed many, entertained more, and was older itself than Clan Telrune. Mayhap it had earned its own name.
He shook out his ruffles and settled himself in the chair. Go back twelve days and he could have said with perfect truth that he had never worn ruffles in his life. Now, he possessed several shirts—made to his own size!—in various colors, each of them showing lace at cuff and collar. In the usual way of things, so he had lately learned, a gentleman did not wear lace in the daytime, or, unless expecting visitors, in the privacy of his own parlor.
But, said Lady yo
’Lanna, he had so short a time to learn the way of them, that it must be ruffles and full dress coat throughout the day.
He feared that he would never learn the way of ruffles, though he had marked that there had been less corrections to his manner over the last two days. Perhaps he had gained some proficiency, after all.
That, he thought was more likely than the possibility that Lady yo’Lanna had given him up as a hopeless case. After a relumma in her care, he had her measure at least—and she was not a woman who accepted defeat. Also, she was Chi yos’Phelium’s especial friend; and she had promised that she would deliver an unexceptionable spouse-elect to the signing.
So it was that he had language lessons, and deportment lessons, and dancing lessons. He was given several fat chapters of the Code to sleep-learn, that he might discuss them with his hostess over mid-morning tea, and so fix them in his mind.
It was, he admitted, gazing out over the garden that seemed to have no outward boundary, an unusual and demanding curriculum. He had never been an avid scholar; even at Anlingdin he had cared for nothing beyond his piloting lessons, deeming the rest of his courses distractions from the real business he had come to learn.
And, atop his new clothes, and his new manner, he had also achieved grooming. Nothing would make his hair amenable and smooth, but the barber summoned by Lady yo’Lanna had clipped the thick stuff short on the sides, and swept it away from his face, while leaving the crown and back longer, so that it almost seemed his own hair, though shockingly free of elf-locks.
Even Lady yo’Lanna had been pleased with the results. At least, he supposed that, “Yes, I thought that you would dress well,” conveyed pleasure.
Of all the persons he had met over this twelve-day, and there had been a surprising number of them, he had seen his wife-to-be only once, and that in company with a very worthy city-man who had been introduced as “Mr. dea’Gauss, my man of business. He will be writing the contracts.”