Conflict Of Honors

by Sharon Lee

  "Fourteen hours," she replied, her mind racing. There was so much she did not know, so much training she would need; and there were people on the Passage who had been there all their lives, child and adult. Kayzin Ne'Zame, working on the ship for fifty years, at the captain's side for thirty of them, a captain she served even after his death . . . .

  Shan sipped brandy. She sensed tension in him, and restraint. The decision was hers. Goddess, I'm a fool. How can it be easier to conceive of looking at his face, hearing his voice, sensing his moods for all of thirty years, than to consider myself without those things for even a week?

  She licked her lips. "If—I would prefer not to renew my contract as second—" she sensed shocked pain from him, quickly damped, as she hurtled on, "—and to sign a new one, as first mate!"

  She was swept by singing triumph and a tangled knot of other feelings, from which she isolated lust, and relief, and joy, and something that seared so she could not find its name before the whole concert was controlled and shackled into the merest background hum.

  "Thank you, Priscilla."

  Her heart was pounding; she was gasping with the force of his emotions, her own powerfully evoked. Mother, the echo . . . she thought. But it was no echo.

  "Priscilla?" He was before her, radiating concern. "Forgive me."

  "No." She set the glass aside, hand questing. He took it in his. "Shan . . . ."

  "Yes, Priscilla?"

  She translated it from the High Tongue, because protocol said it was done this way between Liadens, and it was imperative that he understand, that he not think her grasping or unaware of her place as someone all but Clanless. "Will you share pleasure with me, Shan?"

  His fingers tightened as astonished joy flickered between them, weighted, though, with something else. Seeking, her inner eye perceived a wall, thick and impenetrable, with only a tiny slit in its smooth surface. As she watched, the slit enlarged, eating the wall until it was gone and there was only—Shan.

  The impression was not just sound now, or pattern, or even an occasional whiff of elusive spice. It was all: a woven whole spread before the inner senses—Shan without defenses, open for her to know completely.

  Priscilla cried out, jerking to her feet, gripping his shoulders. "No! Shan, you mustn't!"

  Then there was sadness, though not despair, and the inner landscape faded, becoming again the barely breached Wall as she sagged against him, craving what she had just denied, and pushed her face against his shoulder.

  "Priscilla, I ask your forgiveness yet again." His voice was very gentle in her ear. "I didn't want to distress you."

  She drew a shaky breath and stood away. "I—" Words failed her. Goddess, she thought, twice a fool.

  He sighed and guided her to the couch. Sitting beside her, he took her hand. "When I came to get you from the precinct house in Theopholis, Priscilla, you said something." She tensed. What was real from all she thought she remembered of that night?

  "What you said," he pursued gently, "was, 'Shan, there wasn't enough time to be sure.'"

  She relaxed. She did remember that. "True."

  "It might still be true, Priscilla. There's no need for haste. And many reasons to be . . . sure."

  She struggled with it, trying to balance the Liaden concept of pleasure-love with what she felt in him even now, with what she herself felt. "I asked . . . pleasure. And you want it!"

  "Priscilla, my very dear." He raised her hand, lips brushing her palm, cheek stroking her fingertips. "Of course I want it. But not at the expense of your certainty. I'd be a poor friend if I made that trade." He sighed. "And I've already made you angry with me."

  "Not angry," she protested, knowing he could read that lack in her. "It's—Shan, it's wrong to—to open up so far. To let someone see your—allness."

  "Even when that someone is my dear friend? Even when I wish to give the gift?"

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. "It is how I was taught," she told him humbly. "I never thought to question it." She had the name of the searingly bright emotion then, and felt tears forming. Too little time, indeed . . . .

  He sensed her understanding and nodded. "There are other reasons not to rush, as I said. Consider your new position, for one matter. Will you have people say that you are first mate because you and the captain are lovers?"

  Her chin rose. "It's our business, not theirs!"

  "Theirs," he corrected. "It's a matter of melant'i, and of ship's administration. The crew must know that the two people who run this ship are honorable, are trustworthy—are capable. That proved, you may take any lover—and as many!—as you wish. You do have an extensive amount of training to undergo, you know, before you'll be up to Kayzin's level."

  Impossibly, she laughed. "As if I didn't know it!"

  He grinned, relieved and admiring. "Will you be staying on Liad, Priscilla?"

  She nodded. "I'm guesting with Lina until I find a house of my own."

  "Good. Then you'll be able to get a firm grounding during the time we're docked. And the next run is the long one—one full Standard. Enough time, I'd think, for everyone to know what works and what doesn't." He squeezed her fingers. "We might not make a very good team in spite of it all, Priscilla. That happens sometimes."

  "We're a good team," she said, startled to hear the Seer's lilt in her voice. "We'll be a better one. The best."

  The silver eyes glinted mischief. "You sound sure of yourself, Thodelm. Would you care to place a small wager? Say, a cantra? Issue to be decided at Solcintra docking, next run-end."

  "Done." She grinned, surprised at finding herself so easy, and read the same deep serenity in Shan. On some level, then, they understood each other. The pattern of the Goddess's dance would see to the rest. She gripped the big hand tightly, then let it go and stood. "Sleep well, my friend."

  "Sleep well, Priscilla."

  She moved to the door.

  "Priscilla!"

  "Yes?"

  "May I call on you at Lina's, Priscilla? It might aid certainty."

  She smiled, peace filling her utterly. "I'll be all joy to see you."

  THE END

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