Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  Some time later, she stood on the bridge of the derelict, frowning at the map on the floor. The yacht had fallen to Yxtrang - anyone with eyes could mark the signs - yet Yxtrang did not commonly take time from a raid to engage in meticulous cartography. Nor would one expect them, with an unprotected world at their feet, to delay even a heartbeat in the mapping of an expedition.

  Shadia crouched, as if closer proximity would uncover rhyme - she did not expect reason - and finger-traced the familiar symbol for river.

  Certainly Yxtrang, whatever their unknowable needs, would not use Liaden symbology on their map.

  And certainly, she thought, eyeing the thing with new understanding, they would never map just so, as a Scout might map, taking time and infinite care, forcing hints of information from the yacht's pitiful scans and incorporating them into a body of fact that might be studied and known. The computer on such a vessel would never have had the capacity for the task, even assuming the ship had been undamaged at the time of mapping...

  "Someone gone eklykt'i." Shadia sat back on her heels. Such things happened. Scouts tended to drop out of sight, to go native on some world they may have found and failed to report - or on any world that suited them better than stuffy, stifling Liad. It was not inconceivable that someone had found Vandar just to his taste.

  She considered it, eyes on the map. The unknown Scout raises Vandar - leave for a moment the questions of why he might arrive in something as incongruous as a mere private yacht and in such ignorance of his world of choice that he must squander days in mapping and deciding. He arrives, we say, and in time descends to the planet surface, perhaps programming the yacht for an outbound course - or an inbound course, Shadia thought abruptly. Best to sink the thing in the sun and be done with it.

  The empty yacht, then, is apprehended in its course by Yxtrang, who strip it and tag it for salvage.

  "And leave it harmlessly in orbit around an inhabited world? Come now, Shadia!"

  She sighed sharply and snapped to her feet. The facts were that a derelict yacht had no business about Vandar - never mind how it had gotten there. Her duty was clear, at least. Surface scans showed no disruptions such as an invading force of Yxtrang might engender, nor was she authorized to search out one gone eklykt'i. Speculation could be put aside for a later time. It would help fill the remaining hours of the garbage run.

  She ran the hand sensors around, recording whatever details mere human eyes might miss. It was possible that she was stranding someone there - but that was their lookout, not hers. Besides, the way the orbit was canted, the ship was not good for much more than a few hundred days. Might as well finish the job properly.

  Purposefully she turned to the board, flipped toggles, and initiated overrides, brows rising briefly as the Statcomp reported several mandatory energy governors missing entirely; she cycled the magnetics until the whine hurt her ears, fed all available energy, including life support, into one critical cell, and ran for the door.

  She hit the pilot's chair and slapped toggles, not bothering with webbing, then jerked the Scout ship away in a dizzying roll, hands flashing over a board yellow-lit with warnings, building velocity at an alarming rate, blurring impossibly into Jump. Behind her, the derelict yacht exploded, raining daytime meteors onto the world below.

  VANDAR

  Springbreeze Farm

  Dawn was three hours away when a shadow detached itself from the others clustered about the scuppin house and made its way soundlessly across the crusty snow to the base of the kitchen steps. At the top of the flight, the door swung open on newly oiled hinges, and a second shadow - shorter, more slender - leaned out, yellow light spilling from the room behind and gleaming off a wealth of copper hair.

  "Morning," she said, as if she could see him plainly, though the light did not reach nearly so far. "You coming in or not?"

  "Good morning," he murmured, drifting silently up the stairs. At the landing he paused and smiled and made his bow. "I would very much like to come in, please, Miri."

  "Good thing." She grinned and slipped back into the room. "Breakfast's almost ready. Thought I'd have to give your half to the dog."

  "Am I late?" he asked closing the door and unfastening his jacket. From the rug in the corner, Borril thumped his tail and gave a groan of welcome.

  "Not late," Miri said from the stove. "I guess you're just right on time."

  He grinned, hung his jacket on the peg between her blue one and Zhena Trelu's disreputable plaid, and bent to yank on Borril's ears. "Hello, dog. So you survived, did you? Quite the hero - the newssheets told your story most movingly."

  Borril groaned loudly and dove sideways onto his head, rolling an ecstatic yellow eye.

  Val Con laughed, reached out to grab the blunt snout, and gave a brisk shake. "Shameless creature. I've come home only to pull on your ridiculous ears, I suppose. Yes, I see the splint. Your own fault for breaking the leg in the first place. Surely you might have managed things better than that?"

  The dog answered with another soulful groan, which squeezed off into a sigh as the man rose and moved toward the stove.

  Miri glanced up and pointed a brisk finger at the cup steaming on the counter. "You walk all the way from Hakan's, boss?"

  He curved cold hands gratefully about the teacup and bent his face into the fragrant steam. "It is quite lovely tonight - very clear. It is true there are not so many stars in this system, but I think tonight one might have counted each." He sipped carefully. "I was not so patient, alas."

  "Could've stayed till morning," Miri said, doing efficient things with spatula and skillet while Val Con sniffed appreciatively. "Hakan would've brought you on his way into town."

  He raised a brow. "But, you see, I wished to speak to my wife tonight, and I am very much afraid that Hakan was abed by the time my necessity had made itself known."

  "There's the phone..."

  Val Con laughed. "Inadequate." He went to the dish closet and pulled out silverware and napkins. "Would you like the plates over there?"

  "Yeah..." she said, attention almost fully on the task at hand. Val Con divided knives, forks, spoons, and napkins - yellow for her, blue for him - carried the plates to the counter, and poured a second cup of tea. He took both cups to the table and returned to rummage in the icebox for bread and butter.

  "Breakfast," Miri announced, bringing the plates to the table. "Hope you're hungry."

  "Not quite ready to expire," he said, slipping into a chair and picking up the fork.

  Miri grinned and attacked her own meal, surprised at her sudden hunger.

  There was a sigh from her right; she glanced up to find him smiling at her. "It tastes wonderful, cha'trez; thank you. I was afraid I would have to eat my coat, you see."

  She laughed and reached to pick up her cup, then shook her head at him. "Zhena Trelu thinks you run off. Wants me to call the cops and have you brought to justice."

  "A rogue," he told his plate, with deep sorrow. "A man without honor." He glanced at her from under his lashes. "You did not believe this?"

  She blinked. "No."

  "Progress," he informed the plate, stabbing a forkful of breakfast. "Good."

  The green eyes were back on her before she could frame a fitting reply. "Has Zhena Trelu brought you more clothes, cha'trez? The shirt is very nice."

  She shook her head. "Funny thing - people from all over Bentrill have been sending us clothes, and books and - ah, hell, I don't even know what half the stuff is. Money. Lots of money, seems like. Zhena Trelu was trying to tell me how much we own right now, but I don't think I got it straight. Bunch of stuff for you piled up in the music room - " She slammed to a halt, catching the frozen look in his eyes.

  "A bounty?" he asked quietly, fork forgotten in his hand. "For the soldiers we killed?"

  Oh. Yxtrang took bounty; Liadens counted coup.

  "I don't think it's a bounty," she said carefully. "The way Kem explained it is people think we're heroes and are - grateful to us for stoppi
ng the army when we did. Would've been ugly, if they'd gotten into Gylles." She paused, biting her lip. "The stuff's for balance, I think, 'cause people feel like they owe the three of us something for doing them a favor."

  "I see," he murmured, and returned his attention to breakfast.

  She finished her own, savoring the taste, happy just to have him there, quiet and companionable. Tentatively she reached inside and touched the pattern-place in her head - and nearly dropped her fork.

  The pattern shone. It glittered. It scintillated. She forced her inner eye to follow the interlockings and branching-aways - and felt the wholeness and the rightness and the warmth of it like joy in her own heart.

  She drew a shaky breath, unaware that he was watching until he said her name.

  "Yo." She withdrew from the pattern-place with a little wrench.

  "What are you thinking, Miri?"

  "I - " She blinked. "Where's the genie, boss?"

  "Ah." He leaned back in his chair, eyes on her face. "Subsumed, I think you would say; his powers taken and his vision destroyed."

  "And it's not gonna happen again? You gotta fight again, you won't get stuck?" She shrugged, eyes bright. "Scariest thing I ever saw in my life, when that thing went haywire. I was looking right at it! One second, it's fine; next second, it's totally nuts."

  "I am sorry," he said, "that you were frightened. And, no; I will not get trapped again. There is nothing left to be trapped within - only Val Con, the things he knows and the abilities he possesses."

  She frowned. "The Loop?"

  "Exists," he said calmly. "It is, after all, an ability I have - to observe and to render odds." He saw the shadow cross her face and leaned forward, hand outstretched. "Miri."

  Slowly she slid her fingers into his. "Val Con?"

  "Yes," he assured her, very gently. "Who else? Are you frightened, Miri? I - "

  But she was shaking her head, eyes half closed as she touched the pattern inside her head. "Not scared. The pattern's - it's right. Not quite the same as it was - but it's okay."

  He drew a breath, but she was suddenly wide-eyed and smiling as she squeezed his fingers. "Where'd you come up with the notion of genies, anyhow? Thought that was home-grown Terran stuff."

  "So it is," he said, leaning back and releasing her hand. "But my foster mother was Terran, remember? And she told us stories. One had to do with a man who had found a bottle on a beach. He pulled out the cork and a genie emerged, bowing low and proclaiming indebtedness. He offered to perform three services, as balance for the debt."

  "Sounds like the standard line," Miri agreed, watching his face. "Can't trust 'em, though. Genies are a very slippery bunch."

  "So it seemed. But it must be said that the fellow who had found the bottle was not among the wisest of individuals." He picked up his teacup. "I was enraptured by the tale - it took strong hold of my mind, and I found myself considering how I might have managed the thing, were it to happen that a genie owed me three services." He smiled, eyes glinting in what she recognized as mischief.

  "After much thought, I felt I had a plan which was foolproof. I was, after all, six years old - and very wise for my age. All that remained was to obtain a bottle containing a genie." He laughed a little and set his cup down. "So, I took myself to my uncle's wine cellar - "

  "Oh, no," Miri breathed, eyes round.

  "Oh, but yes," he assured her. "It was perhaps not quite wise of me to have chosen a time for this search when my uncle was at home. Though I still do not understand why he made such a fuss. It was not as if I had failed to recork the bottles that contained only wine..."

  She was laughing, head tipped back on her slim neck. "And he let you live?"

  "It was," he admitted, "a near thing."

  Her shoulders jerked with more laughter, and she wiped at her cheeks with unsteady fingers. His eyes followed the motion, and feeling absurdly shy, she held her hand out to him.

  He smiled gently at the silver snake curving about her finger, blue gem held firmly in its jaws. "I am happy that you choose to wear it again, cha'trez. Thank you."

  She shrugged, dropping her eyes. "It was hard to wear it and work around here - afraid I was going to break it or lose it. King's carpenters, or whoever they were, did such a bang-up job of putting this place back together, there ain't nothing left to do but feed the scuppins." She glanced up, half smiling. "We're out of a job, boss."

  "We shall find another, then." He lifted a brow. "What pattern?"

  When she hesitated, he leaned forward, remembering old fears. "Does it hurt you, cha'trez?"

  "Hurt?" She shook her head. "Naw, it's - nice. Mostly, it's nice," she corrected herself. "When you went all bats there during the battle, then it wasn't so nice, but it didn't hurt, even then. It was just - wrong." She bit her lip, looking at him worriedly. "Val Con, aren't you doing it? I was sure - It feels like you!"

  Her shoulders were starting to tense, puzzlement giving way to alarm. He pushed his chair back, captured her hand, and coaxed her onto his lap. Straddling his knees, she looked into his eyes.

  "Boss, it's gotta be you. I knew you were in trouble. Knew it! Saw it. Left you alone for three horrible days, like a certified pingdoogle, figurin' you'd pull out - "

  "Miri. Miri - don't, cha'trez..." He ran light fingers down her face, trying to stroke away the lines of pain. "Please, Miri - it was not your failing."

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

  "Miri?"

  "I'm okay." She opened her eyes to prove it, and Val Con smiled, very slightly.

  "Good." He paused briefly. "Let us say that it is me," he began, feeling for the proper way to arrange the bulky Terran words. "It truly does not distress you? I am happy if that is so. I was afraid that you would be able to - hear - and that it would hurt you."

  "Why?" She frowned, eyes sharpening. "No, wait - you've got a pattern for me in your head? Does it hurt you?"

  "Not a pattern," he said gently. "A song. I like it very much. It is - a comfort."

  There was silence for a heartbeat or two. "Val Con?" she said then.

  "Yes."

  "What is it? If you're not doing it, but it's you..." She shook her head. "I don't think I get it."

  "I am trying, cha'trez - it is not so easy, in Terran." She shifted, and he smiled. "I am not blaming you, Miri. It is only that what I must explain is a Liaden thing. Did you speak Low Liaden, the name itself would tell you about the thing. In Terran, I must try to bend the words - though not so far, eh? Or they will be nonsense."

  "Okay." She reached down and wove their fingers together, then looked up. "Go."

  "Let us," he said, after a moment, "see if it will make sense this way: What you have in your head - what I have in mine - is a fragment of empathy. You, for me. I, for you. 'Alive-and-well,' my song seems to say. Also, I found tonight, it is directional. When I set out from Hakan's, I walked toward Zhena Brigsbee's house; then I thought to touch my song of you and found you had come back here." He smiled. "Perhaps that is why I was almost late for breakfast. How did you know I was coming?"

  She shrugged, eyes on his. "I - ah, damn! - I felt you homing, I guess. Whatever that means." She frowned. "And I knew when you were in trouble."

  "Yes. And I shall know if you are hurt, or in great distress. I think that, over time, one might become more skilled at reading the nuances." He sighed. "Not a good explanation, at all. Does it suffice you?"

  "Gimme a century or two...Val Con?"

  "Yes."

  "Do all lifemates have this empathy thing? That's why you married me? 'Cause you could hear this song, or whatever?"

  He shook his head "It is not a thing that is often given - " he began, silently damning the futility of trying to fully share the wonder. "And I have not been able to hear you for very long - certainly not before we came here. In the very old days I think that this was something more, that lifemates were, indeed, understood to be people who had become - joined. I - the tale goes that - again, in the old day
s, when such things were more common - those so joined became as - one person. Ah, that is wrong! That the thoughts flowed back and forth, one to the other, without need for words. That there was sharing - " He broke off, shaking his head sharply. "Cha'trez, I am very stupid."

  "Naw, it's just a goofy idea. No sober Terran'd believe you." She thought for a moment. "This sharing stuff - that gonna happen to us?"

  "I do not think so. After all, we are only ordinary people, not wizards in the full flush of our powers."

  "Right." She sighed, stared intently at nothing, then grinned. "Guess I'll have to learn Low Liaden real soon."

  "I would like that," he told her, holding her hand tightly. "Do you truly wish to learn?"

  "Yes!" she said with unexpected passion, gray eyes blazing.

  Breath suddenly caught in his throat, and his brows snapped together.

  "What's up?"

  "It is - a strange thing, Miri. I have only just thought." He smiled, though she was not sure of the expression in his eyes. "If I had not been recruited by the Department of the Interior, I would have had no cause to be on Lufkit at all, nor would I have walked down a certain alley at such a time..." And all my life, he thought, I would have awakened unwarm, not understanding that I missed the weight of a certain head upon my shoulder; grown ever more silent, unable to know that I listened for the sound of one voice laughing at my side. In the old days, it was told that one had been able to call, searching for the beloved one had yet to know...

  "Now that's crazy, whatever language you say it in," Miri was snapping. "Better you'd stayed a Scout and been light-years away from Lufkit than had everybody and his first cousin messing around inside your head, hurting you - " She snapped it off, appalled again by the easy tears.

  He bent forward to lay his lips against hers, meaning only to comfort her, but he felt the passion flare and stood, cradling her in his arms.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

  "Holding you." He was laughing softly. "Shall I put you down?"