by Sharon Lee
"You sleep there," she told Meri.
The girl moved soundlessly over the rag rug and scrubbed floorboards to sit on the edge of the bed. She smiled and raised her hand to cover another yawn, while Corvill waited quietly by the door.
"That's fine," Zhena Trelu said. "Good night, Meri." She nodded to the man. "Good night, Corvill."
"Good night, Zhena Trelu," she heard him say softly as she pulled the door shut behind her.
Val Con turned down the bed and undressed, folding his clothes onto the bench against the wall. Slipping under the covers, he took a deep breath, consciously relaxing, and let his eyes rest on Miri.
She undressed, letting her clothes lie where they fell, and went to the mirror across the room, unwrapping the braid from around her head. It seemed that she swayed slightly where she stood, but he was tired enough to believe it only a trick of his eyes.
"Come to bed, cha'trez."
She turned her head and gave him a faint smile. "You convinced me."
It took her too long to walk across the room—she was, indeed, swaying—and she sat on the edge of the bed with a bump. "Why'm I so tired?"
"Altitude, perhaps. Also, we have had to think very hard today—everything is strange, the words must be heard and remembered . . ." He shifted, pulling back the covers. "Miri, come to bed; you're cold."
"Nag, nag." But she slipped under the covers, her face beginning to relax as she closed her eyes—and tensing again as she snapped them open. "Light. Aah, the hell with it." She closed her eyes with finality.
The hell with it, he agreed silently, and closed his own eyes, letting the tide of weariness take him.
Someone shouted his name; there were rough hands on his shoulders, and he was fighting, and the voice cried his name again, and it seemed familiar, and he opened his eyes with a jerk, staring uncomprehending at the face suspended above him.
"It's Miri," she told him, breathlessly.
"Yes." He was shaking, he realized, even more bewildered. The room beyond Miri's shoulder was brightly lit, composed, empty of threat. He looked back into her eyes. "What happened?"
She let out a shaky breath. "You were having a nightmare. A bad dream." She released his shoulders and slid to one side, her cheek resting on her hand.
A bad dream? He cast his mind after—and found it immediately; he recognized it for what it was and knew he was shaking harder. The bedclothes were stifling, in spite of his chill. He pushed them away and began to get up.
"Val Con?"
He looked at her, and she saw the lines etched around his mouth and the shadow of fear in the green eyes. He was trembling so hard she could see it. She put out a hand and covered his, feeling the cold and the shaking.
"There's this old Terran cure for nightmares," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Goes like this: You have a bad dream, you tell somebody. Then you never have it again." She offered a smile, wondering if he heard her. "Works."
He took a slow, deep breath, then lay back down like a thing made of wood and pulled the cover back over him.
Miri moved closer, not touching but offering warmth, hoping to ease the trembling. She reached out to brush the hair from his eyes.
"Not a dream," he said, and his voice was as rigid as his body. "A memory. When I was put on—detached duty—from the Scouts to the Department of the Interior I—received my orders and went to fulfill them—immediately, as instructed. I entered the proper building and walked down the proper hallway—and every step I took down that hall it seemed there was something—crying out?—screaming—in me—telling me to run, to go far away, to on no account continue forward . . ."
"And did you?" she asked softly.
He made a sound, which she did not think was laughter. "Of course I did. What else would I have done? Disobeyed orders? The dishonor—the disgrace . . .Gone eklykt'i? My Clan . . ." He was holding himself so stiffly that she thought he would break.
"I continued down the corridor, fighting myself every step of the way—against every instinct I had otherwise. Against my hunch. The only time in my life I failed to heed a hunch . . ." He closed his eyes.
Miri shifted beside him, worriedly.
"I went down the hall," he said tonelessly, "through the proper door, handed my papers in, and commenced training as an Agent of Change. And they lied, gods, and made it seem truth and twisted what I saw and how I knew things and pushed and pulled inside my head until Val Con yos'Phelium was hardly more than a memory. And it hurt . . ." He took a breath that could not have filled his lungs—and suddenly the horrible control snapped and he was rolling toward her, his arms locking around her, his head burrowing into her shoulder.
"Ah, Miri," he cried, anguish twisting in his voice. "Miri, it hurt . . ."
And he burst into tears.
She held him until it subsided, stroking the dark hair, running her hands down his back, feeling the tension going, going—gone, finally, with the sudden last of the tears. She held him a little longer and sighed; his breathing told her he was asleep.
She shifted, trying to ease away, but his arms tightened, and he moved his head on her shoulder, muttering, so that she sighed, resigning herself to a cramped and sleepless night.
She woke to find him looking very seriously into her face.
"Morning," she said fuzzily. "Is it morning?"
"Early morning," he said softly. "I do not think Zhena Trelu is about yet."
"Good." She moved, meaning to give him a kiss—and stopped.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
She shrugged, glancing away from the brightness of his gaze. "I'm never sure whether you want me to kiss you or not."
"Ah, now that is very bad," he said. "A problem in communication. I suggest that the best course is for you to kiss me whenever you wish to do so. In this way you will eventually be able to ascertain when it is I most wish to be kissed."
"Yeah?" She grinned and swooped down, intending the veriest peck on the cheek, but he shifted his head and caught her lips with his. His fingers were as suddenly in her hair, loosing the braid, stroking lightly . . .
When the kiss was over, Miri lay trembling on his chest, looking at his face, all blurred with longing and lust and love. "Any more kisses like that," she said, hearing that her voice shook as well, "and I ain't guaranteeing the outcome."
He smiled gently, one eyebrow slipping up. "It's early."
She closed her eyes against the sight of him, against the sudden stab of—what?
Robertson, she pleaded with herself, don't go sappy on me. She felt his fingers, feather light and trembling, moving down her cheek, stroking the curve of her throat.
"Please, Miri," he said wistfully. "I would like another kiss."
Opening her eyes, she obliged him to the fullest extent possible.
LIAD:
Solcintra Port
Yes, the middle-aged voice assured Cheever in uptown Terran, the First Speaker would be delighted to see Mr. McFarland as soon as he arrived. Should a car he dispatched from Trealla Fantrol, or did he have his own transportation?
"I got cab fare," Cheever growled, mistrusting the voice, the featureless grid from which it emanated, the packet in his inside vest pocket, and very nearly the turtle who had gotten him into this, except there was no sense to that. The turtle had dealt straight. Turtles always dealt straight.
"Very good, then, sir," the voice told him. "The First Speaker awaits your arrival." The connection stud went dark.
"Yeah, great," Cheever muttered as he stepped out of the booth into the noisy tide of Port traffic.
He was nearly to the city gate before he saw a cab and waved it frantically to a halt. The Liaden woman in the driver's slot slanted him a look he was not sure he liked as he settled in the passenger's seat.
"I want to go to Trealla Fantrol," he snapped in Trade.
"Ah."
Cheever glared at her. "You know how to get there, or doncha?"
"I know the way. The question becomes, 'Can you aff
ord the fare?'"
He took a deep, frustrated breath. Damn Liaden was laughing at him. "You want your round-trip upfront, is that it? Name your choice: Unicredit, bits, or Liaden money, if you got change for a cantra."
She stared at him for a long moment, apparently oblivious to the confusion her motionless vehicle was causing among Port pedestrians. "You wish to go to Trealla Fantrol."
Cheever clamped his jaw and refused to look down at his worn leathers, though the shirtsleeve he saw from the corner of his eye was far from clean.
"Yeah, I do. This is a cab, ain't it? You can take me to Trealla Fantrol, right?"
"Indeed, this is a cab. As for taking you to Trealla Fantrol . . ." The shoulders rippled, conveying nothing. "It is a pleasant morning for a drive."
Abruptly the cab swerved into traffic, gained momentum, dashed down a side street, and, a moment later, sped through the main gates. Cheever sat back in the seat, swearing at shortened leg room, and stared out the window, thinking about his ship.
Solcintra went by in a blurring zigzag of tree-lined streets. The ground pilot knew her quadrant inside out, Cheever allowed grudgingly, then snapped upright in the short seat as they sailed through a second gate—this one old and stone and shrouded with purple blossoms—and were abruptly in open country.
"Hey!"
The cabbie turned her head, forward velocity unchecked.
"Where the hell we going?" Cheever yelled, staring in confusion at jade-green meadow on one side, trees on the other, and a twisty road running toward some kind of tower leaping up out of a stand of trees way on the far side of the valley.
"We are going to Trealla Fantrol. It is the destination you chose. I merely agreed to take you—as far as we are allowed to go."
There was an unmistakable note of malice in that last bit. Cheever silently cursed the Liaden race, this specimen in particular, and his own stupidity in mentioning that he had a cantra on him. She was going to take him to Trealla Fantrol, okay—the long way.
"Where I want to go's in Solcintra," he tried, keeping his voice reasonable.
"Then you do not wish to go to Trealla Fantrol."
"Oh." He frowned out the window, where the tower across the valley was taking on more details by the second. In fact, it did not look like a tower at all, but a tree, except who had ever heard of a tree that tall? He pointed at it. "That Trealla Fantrol?"
The cabbie laughed. "Indeed it is not. That is Jelaza Kazone. Perhaps you'd rather go there? Though I hear the Korval is not presently in residence."
"Trealla Fantrol," Cheever said firmly, "is where the First Speaker of Clan Korval lives. I know that."
"Do I dispute it? Look to your left hand and you will see the chimneys."
He found seven of them, crowning a tight cluster of trees, then lost sight of all as the cab plunged down a steep incline, dashed left into a sudden roadway, and proceeded at an abruptly conservative pace.
They had gone perhaps a quarter mile when she glanced at him once more. "It appears you are expected."
He looked back, laconic in the face of her surprise. "What makes you think so?"
"The last fare I had to Trealla Fantrol was stopped a cab's length inside the grounds." There was another ripple of thin shoulders. "One assumes that she was not expected."
They passed beneath an archway, and the perfume of the flowers was momentarily overpowering until driven away by a sharp, lemony scent from the bushes on both sides.
The bushes ended and the cab spun through a quick right turn, left turn, emerged into a sweeping elliptical drive, and stopped smoothly at the base of a stairway.
Cheever stared, hand curling into a fist on his thigh; the weight of the package in his pocket trebled, and he wished fervently that he had taken the time to buy a new shirt.
"Trealla Fantrol," the cabbie said. "I will take Unicredit."
He fumbled it out of his pouch and never even looked to see how much she charged him. The turtle had said it was urgent, that Cheever was to deliver the turtle's package to the First Speaker of Clan Korval at Trealla Fantrol, Solcintra, with all possible speed.
The cabbie shoved the card back into his slack fingers. "My thanks, Jump pilot. Fare you well."
He started, dropped the card back into his pouch, and took a deep breath as the cab door swung aside. "Thanks. Errr . . .maybe you better wait."
"A waste of my time. Trealla Fantrol expects you. It is unlikely you will be sent forth in a cab." The door slid closed, and the cab was moving, taking the rest of the ellipse in smooth acceleration before vanishing down the long drive.
Cheever squared his shoulders and went up the stairs.
He laid his palm against the center plate in the big wooden door and composed himself to wait. They were not going to like him, the people who lived here. He had a sinking feeling that they were going to like the turtle's message even less.
Beyond the door, there was a brief rumble. Then the door was pulled open from the inside, and the voice from the Port phone inquired, "Mr. McFarland?"
For an instant he wanted desperately to deny it, to run down the stairs and the long drive, back to the Port and the loaned ship. Wanted to ditch the package and forget he had ever said he would deliver it.
Wanted to back down on his guarantee to a Clutch-turtle?
"Yeah," he managed, if a little hoarsely.
"Do step inside, sir. I've been instructed to place you in the small salon. Please come with me."
He stepped into the velvet-dim hall, turned toward his host—and felt his jaw drop. The squat metal cylinder did not seem to notice; indeed, it may have been too busy closing the heavy door to pay any attention to Cheever's lapse of courtesy.
Door closed, the 'bot rotated on its axis and gestured with one of its three flexible arms. "Right this way, Mr. McFarland."
"Okay . . .Uh, didn't I talk to you on the phone?"
The orange ball balanced on top of the monstrosity flickered, and all three arms waved gently. "Quite right. I am the butler, sir; Jeeves. At, I might add, your service."
"Sure you are," Cheever said. He shook his head slightly. "We're going to the—small salon?"
"Exactly so. If you would be good enough to come with me, sir? It's just a step down the hall."
Jeeves's step was most people's hike, Cheever decided some minutes later. It took more time to cross the slippery marble foyer than it did to go through a normal Terran house, and he added a second or two to the trip by stopping to stare at the sweep of strellawood stairs.
"The grand staircase," Jeeves murmured as they moved on. "Each riser hand-carved with an episode from the Great Migration and other illustrious points of history. I'm told it's quite impressive."
"Uh . . .yeah. Yeah, it's real nice," Cheever said, and followed the 'bot down a side hall only a little less wide than the foyer.
There were wooden doors with crystal knobs set dead center; there were impossibly delicate lights glimmering here and there on the wood-paneled walls; there was more wood underfoot, resilient beneath his boots, muting the rumble of the 'bot's wheels. Cheever shook his head to clear it and nearly fell into his guide.
"Here we are, sir. I trust you'll find the aspect pleasant, what with the ethaldom in bloom. Lord yos'Galan will be with you shortly."
Three steps into the room, Cheever spun. "Lord yos'Galan!" But the 'bot was gone.
"I want to see Lady Nova yos'Galan," he told the empty room. "First Speaker of Clan Korval. The turtle said Lady Nova yos'Galan . . ." Hands tucked into belt, he prowled the perimeter of the room, wincing at the smudge his boot had left on the creamy carpet. Bookshelves filled to capacity—bound books mostly, which told how rich they were even if he had not had the evidence of the house, the grounds, and the grotesque, efficient robot. People who owned books at all owned book-tapes; Cheever's personal collection included several piloting manuals and the general concordance for the Traland Three Thousands, though of course he had done his own mods on LucyBug . . .
; The door at his back clicked and creaked, and Cheever spun with pilot quickness, the weight of the package pulling his vest a little wide.
"Good morning!" an affable voice cried in Terran unsmirched by uptown twang or Liaden blurring. "Mr. McFarland, isn't it? I'm so very glad to meet you, sir!"
The man coming toward him was Terran-high, though an inch or two shorter than Cheever himself, and dressed in exquisitely clean trousers and a full-sleeved, claret-colored shirt that set off the white hair shockingly. Beneath the old man's hair was a young man's face: big nose, wide mouth curved in a grin, pale eyes warm under slanting, silver brows. He held out a large, square hand on which an amethyst ring gleamed.
"Shan yos'Galan at your service."
Cheever grinned and slapped his own hand around the one offered. "Cheever McFarland. Pleased to meet you."
"As I am to meet you—but I said that already, didn't I? Mustn't repeat myself. Has no one given you wine? My dear man . . .Our hospitality has been wanting, and you fresh from the Port. Very dusty sort of place, Solcintra Port. Don't you find it so?"
"Errr . . ." Cheever said as the big hand came to his shoulder and coaxed him toward a discreet onyx counter.
"Precisely," his host said. "Will you have some morning wine? Whiskey? Misravot? Brandy? We have an excellent jade and a passable white, but I confide in you, sir—the red excels them both."
Whiskey . . .Cheever could almost taste it. A whiskey would be real good. Regretfully, he shook his head. "You wouldn't maybe have some coffee?" He smiled a little sheepishly at the other man. "Been up for a while, see? 'Fraid the booze'd go straight to my head."
"We can't have that, can we? Jeeves," he said, apparently to the room at large. "Please bring Mr. McFarland some coffee."
Glass clinked against crystal as he poured himself a healthy swallow of red wine. "I can't help noticing the insignia on your vest. Bascomb Lines, isn't it?"
Cheever's hand went to his left breast, where the once-bright Sol System insignia had almost faded away. "Yeah . . ."