by Doris Egan
I said, "Oh, give it a chance. Isn't it a Cormallon tradition to take in the cream of the ones heading up the Northwest Sector route?"
He considered that. After a bit he stared to smile. He probably missed all the servants he left behind at Cormallon, I thought. Karlas and Tyl were all right, but they didn't wait on him hand and foot. And I suppose he also missed the idea of household. He wanted one, even if it had a leaky roof and the noise from the bar next door never stopped.
He said, finally, "I wonder if either one of them can cook."
I grinned. "We can always ask."
Chapter Eighteen
When we got back, I went straight upstairs and fell on my bed. Ran had to sit up waiting for Tyl and our two refugees to reach home, so he could redraw the circle of protection. I slept through their arrival and through the subsequent reshuffling of bedrooms. Most houses in the capital have plenty of rooms, but five sleeping chambers was our present limit; Ran had no intention of sharing his room or letting me share mine, and as a married couple the Serrens seemed entitled to their own. So Halet was routed out of bed and asked to move in with Tyl. When I got up, late in the morning, I found Halet rolling fitfully on some cushions in the parlor, red-eyed and irritable; apparently Tyl snored.
Ran at least was happy. He was up ahead of me, as were the Serrens, and Heida was setting a huge plate of hermit's eggs, smoked saffish, and half a pellfruit in front of him. Arno was still working at the stove. They must have been up hours ago and at the dawn market.
I sat down beside Ran. "Impressive," I said.
He said, "It tastes good, too."
And just last night he'd been implying a quick shooting would be in the best interests of all. Yet once they were in the household they were members like anyone else, and here he was sitting smugly over this breakfast as though he were personally responsible for it.
"Hermit's eggs for me, too?" I asked.
"Ask your sycophants," said Ran, through a mouthful of saffish.
"They're not my sycophants," I said.
Heida hurried over with a cup of tah. "Noble lady," she said, setting it in front of me. "We'll have yours ready in just a moment. We have spices, too, if you want salt or pepper."
"Heida, I'm not a noble lady, hasn't anyone told you?"
She looked flustered. Ran smiled around a forkful of egg-
"I'm sorry, noble lady. I didn't mean to be impolite."
I had the feeling that "Theodora" would be a long time coming from this woman, and that even if I succeeded, I'd be the only one in the house she called by name. I gave up the attempt to foist my outworld principles on her. "How about 'my lady'? We're house members now, you know.''
She smiled in relief. "Yes, my lady. We have sliced red peppers, if you would like them?"
She went off to help Arno and I said to Ran, "It reminds me of the first time you told me to call you 'sir.' "
"Undisciplined little tymon, weren't you?" he replied.
I ignored that and took a sip of tah. "I take it you'll be analyzing the pellet data today."
"Of course."
"Do you want me to stick around? I did some analysis on Athena."
He shook his head. "Go to the Square, as usual. We'll look guilty if we break our patterns too obviously."
"Does it matter? Eln's going to have a pretty good idea it was one of us."
"The council won't, and there's no need to get their attention."
I didn't want to bring it up but felt it had to be said. "They've acted without proof before."
"Not without manufactured proof, and that sort of thing takes time."
"And you don't have a Net link code."
"I'll be using Halet's."
Well, there was nothing more to be said. I sipped my tah.
* * *
Apparently he was dead serious about keeping to pattern because he showed up in the Square in late afternoon. He dropped by my tinaje tent before going to set up among the games players. "How's it going?" I asked, when I'd sent off my latest customer.
"Huh," he said, sitting down for a minute. "A lot of numericals, a lot of charts. It's going to take a while."
"We do have the right data, though, don't we?"
He looked tired. "I dearly hope so."
"I can help, if you need it."
"It's not just the analysis, it's what it means. We've got a fine graph, for instance, and I can tell you the formula that describes the curve on it, but what it's doing here I have no idea. I thought from the points on the vertical axis that it was some kind of lunar cycle; but it isn't, quite." He ran a hand through his hair. "Eln's had years to study this, I'm just beginning."
Someone rustled the tent wall; a customer, asking admittance. "Damn," I said.
He rose. "I have to go anyway. I'll see you tonight."
That night was spent going through printouts. We sat on the floor of the parlor staring at one sheet after another. None of it meant anything to me; I could see why Ran hadn't leaped at my offer of assistance. This was heavy going.
Some time after midnight, Ran put down a roll of charts, leaned back against his pillow, and closed his eyes. "No," he said.
"Get some sleep," I said. "You'll do better when you're not so tired."
"Look who's talking. It was just last night you were crash-landing a car outside the Cormallon barrier. A very expensive car, I might add."
"Would you want me to crash a cheap one? Get some sleep."
He smiled, very distantly, eyes still closed. I left him there and went upstairs.
* * *
Someone was shaking my arm. "Wake up. Come on, Theodora, wake up."
"What? What?" I opened my eyes. Ran was standing over me, and a dim light was coming through the window slit. "What time is it?"
"Almost sunrise. Listen, I've got it."
"What?" I said again. He went over to my basin, poured water onto the sponge and brought it back to my bed-mat. He started wiping my face with it. "Hey!" I said. "Hey, that's cold."
He threw the sponge back onto the washtable. It hit the towel with a spongy splat, like a wet snowball. "Listen," he said. "The graphs. They're time-intensity graphs."
"So?"
"Intensity of sorcery," he said impatiently. "On a time axis, because it changes over time—waxes and wanes, just like the moon."
"I don't see why."
"It's not his, you see. He doesn't get it in one lump sum—he has to draw on it continuously, and some times he can draw more than others. So he has to time his plans to fit with how much he can draw on, do you see?"
"I guess. Sort of."
He smiled. "Which gives us the obvious corollary. We time our plans to fit how much he can draw on, too."
I sat up in bed, beginning to get the idea.
Ran and Karlas started disappearing for long periods of time. This did not surprise me. I continued my time in Trade Square, keeping up the pretense of normality over the next several days. Ran told me, over dinner, that the graphs showed the worst low point of the next two months coming—for Eln—in two days' time.
"What does that mean for us?" I asked. "You said he might have a mirror-spell, didn't you? What can you do?"
"For that matter," he said, "what can he do to me? He's talcing sorcery from Stepan—what if I aimed my own mirror-spell at Stepan? I've had years of experience in laying boobytraps; I've been in the field and Eln hasn't. He'd be an idiot to do anything directly."
I said, "Why don't I feel like applauding? You're both invulnerable, is that what you're saying? And yet somehow I think you have something in mind."
"All right," he said. "It's nothing you have to worry about. You're not involved in this one."
I put down my fork. "What is this one?"
He said, uncomfortably, "IVe been meaning to say— you know, Theodora, that I didn't tell you about the Cor-mallon ground defenses for a reason. If you'd spent days worrying about them ahead of time, you would have been working against yourself in terms of the feedba
ck circuit."
"Yes, I understood that. What's the point?"
"I just wanted to be sure you knew."
Was this in the nature of a last will and testament? I hoped I was just being nervous. "Tell me what's going on," I said.
"Look," he said, "we've been struck close to home before. It took months for Vale to dig me out from under. And when it happened, you lost control of the cards first. In terms of magic, we're linked. I don't want to open up any doors right now that we may not want open."
I leaned back. "I'm a security risk, is that it?"
"I knew you'd say that. You're not listening. Eln's the best theorist on Ivory in this generation—he's doing things people aren't supposed to be able to do. His point of attack might be the cards. It's nothing personal."
I looked down at my empty dinner plate. "He hasn't tried anything before," I said.
"He's never been under this much pressure before."
I was silent. He said, "It's dangerous. Particularly with this new facility you have with the cards. I don't know what you're tapping into, but it worries me. You can't control it, and we don't have time to study it."
"All right," I said.
"You understand, I'm not being arbitrary—"
"Yes, all right."
He studied me. He said, "We've got more Ducort in the kitchen. Would you like some?"
"No, thank you."
"Well—Halet's got us a second loan from the bankers, and we might not have much longer to spend it if things don't work out. Would you like to go to the Lantern Gardens?"
"No, thank you. It's late." I rose from my place.
"The show will only just be starting."
Tyl had come in halfway through the meal, and gulped down his food in his usual silence. Now he looked up and said, "Won't you, my lady? I've never been to the Lantern Gardens. I'd like to come along."
So two nights before whatever was going to happen was going to happen, I went out to the Lantern Gardens, escorted by Ran and Tyl. I painted on all the cosmetics Kylla had given me, and not just to make it a grand occasion. I was also hoping the manager wouldn't remember me from the last time I was there.
I was in the Square as usual the next day when Eln came to see me. Stepan was absent this time. He came alone on his floater, maneuvering carefully through the market crowds. It was a fine sunny day, not like the last visit when he had the place to himself.
I was between customers. "Hello, Eln," I said.
"Beautiful day, Theo, and I'm happy to see you're no worse for wear.''
"Worse for what?" I said. Was he going to accuse me of the Cormallon break-in?
"For the two and a half Pink Ringers you downed at the Lantern Gardens last night."
"Oh. Barely felt them, I assure you."
"I believe it. And you struck me as such an abstemious girl when you first appeared at Cormallon. For a little outlander, you're developing quite a capacity. Have you been gene-tested for alcoholism? Something to bear in mind if you're going to go on this way."
I squinted up at him from where I sat. "Yes, it is a beautiful, sunny day," I said.
"Sorry about the excess sunlight," he said. "Can't stand it, myself. If you'd let me into your tent here, we could both be in the shade."
The rope I'd tied to the pole might just be high enough today to accommodate him. "Come on in," I said, crawling backward.
He managed to maneuver inside by holding the floater about a centimeter off the ground. "Snug, but serviceable," he said. "I suppose you'll be glad when you don't have to squat under a makeshift canvas anymore."
"Oh?"
"The Queen Emily. She takes oif at the end of the week."
"Oh, yes."
He cocked a head in my direction. "I don't detect that scholarly enthusiasm, Theo. Is there something I should know?"
"Eln…"I said. "How's Grandmother?"
He looked serious. "I don't think she has long. She hasn't let me into her room in months." He paused, then said, "I grew up with the idea of Grandmother. She's like a mountain or a rock, you don't imagine anything will happen to it in your lifetime. Now it's like she's gone already. You know, I used to go to her room every night after dinner—even when I didn't show up for dinner— and talk her down so she wouldn't be mad at me."
"Mad at you for what?"
He smiled. "For whatever I'd done."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know much about families. Or death. I don't know what to say."
He said suddenly, "You're not leaving, are you? On the Emily, I mean."
"Maybe I haven't made up my mind. Give me a couple of days, and you'll see for yourself."
He nodded. "You're not leaving. I thought you might not."
There was a tug on the front of the tent just then, and I called, "Busy! Come back later!"
He glanced briefly at the tent opening and said, "You do tinaje for everybody else, but not for me." It was the very echo of what Ran had once said to me, and I tensed. Was he trying to let me know that he had our house bugged? But he seemed to mean it just as he said, could it be a coincidence? "Why not, Theo? I've got some extra time, and riding in the same position every day is hell on my back."
I thought, you ask why not? Because I'm withdrawing from you, and I don't want to do anything to bring us any closer. I'm not going down with you. I may be like you, but I know when to let go.
I sat back on my heels, and he sighed. He looked around the tent, and his gaze rested on my notebook. "May I?" he said.
He leafed through it. "A varied collection," he said. And we spent the next hour talking about my notebook stories. He was probably the only person on Ivory who could have talked to me about my work the way an Ath-enan would. We agreed that there had been very little drift in the oral storytelling lines over the centuries, and after we compared the northern and southern thematic differences, I said suddenly, "Were you responsible for the aircar fire? Did you know I was inside?''
"Yes," he said, and his voice was unhappy but unashamed. His eyes met mine easily.
"Yes to both questions?" I asked. Never willing to let well enough alone.
He said, "Are you going to send this collection to the University Press on Athena?"
"Yes."
"Then let me tell you a story, too. It would be nice to think of something I've said being read by other people, even if they are barbarians."
I said, "If you make up the story yourself, I couldn't honestly include it. The book is supposed to be folktales."
He smiled. "This is an old one." So he told me a story, short but neat, and I wrote it down as he talked. And I wondered, which is Eln, the one sitting beside me now or the one who tried to kill us? I tried to imagine Ran on a murder attempt one week and teaching his vie-tim sa'ret the next. Imagination failed utterly. He was too straightforward emotionally; the idea of being a friend and an enemy at the same time was beyond him. (And that, I realized suddenly, was how Eln had gotten so far so quickly. Ran had iron rules. He couldn't let himself distrust his brother, not till his face was rubbed in the evidence.)
When he was finished I said, "I've heard this story before; there's a version from Earth. Several versions, actually. But it's got Ivory written all over it."
"I'll take your word for that. You'll keep it, then?"
"I'll keep it." And I got the point of the story, too, which was not to ask questions you don't want answers to. So I shelved matters of guilt and responsibility for the time being.
He said, "I must be going. I'm sorry about this, Theo, but as they say, it's one of those things that happen because we are in this world. I won't be so rude as to say it's for your own good, although, as a matter of fact, it is." He was maneuvering the floater out as he spoke. I followed him outside.
"What are you talking—" I stopped short. Four uniformed Imperial officers were standing outside the tent. "Damn it."
"Thank you for waiting," said Eln courteously to the officer in charge. "Please take this for your trouble—" he handed a
small bag to the man "—and convey my thanks to your captain. I 'll send him my regards as soon as I can."
"Our pleasure," said the officer. He turned to me. "Please come with us, gracious lady."
I looked at Eln. "It's all right," he said, "it's nothing lethal. Best just to accompany these good men, Theo."
For some reason I believed him. And the officer had thrown in that "gracious"—he'd been told to be polite, and why waste that on a soon-to-be corpse?
"Be seeing you, then," I said to Eln.
"I'm afraid not," he replied, "but don't forget those notes I left in your ship's cabin link." And to top it off, he waved as they led me away.
* * *
I thought we'd be going to jail, but instead I found myself being taken up the steps of the Athenan Embassy. "Hey!" I said. The officers ignored me. I was led through those well-lit corridors decorated with tasteful Athenan minimalism I'd learned to know so well, back when I first became stranded. The ambassador's secretary, a young man with an unattractive blond mustache, told the officers that the ambassador would be happy to see us; which was more than anybody had ever told me.
We entered the ambassador's office. He stood up to greet us, smiling for the benefit of the Imperials. It was the same man I'd dealt with in my first year on Ivory, whom I'd last seen in the Lantern Gardens under unusual circumstances; silver-haired and distinguished, everything an ambassador should be. He said, "Won't you gentlemen have a seat?"
My captors eyed the straight-backed Athenan chairs warily; "No thank you," said the officer in charge. "We won't take up your time, gracious sir. Can you identify this woman with us?"
"I can," said the ambassador.
' 'Theodora of Pyrene?'' asked the officer.
"Yes," said the ambassador.
"A distressed Athenan citizen, without a work permit?"
"That's correct," said the ambassador.
"You pig," I said.
"Thank you," said the officer. "Any objections to deportation? ''
"Wait a minute—"
"None," said the ambassador.