Korval's Game

by Sharon Lee

  Pat Rin sighed, chilly in the sudden absence of his anger.

  “Mr. McFarland, I am not a pilot, and my hands on the board would be sufficient to frighten any honest ship-handler into an early retirement. Yes, I know the protocols. Nearly all my kin are pilots. I was myself tested for pilot. And I failed. Repeatedly. I am at a loss as to how I might make this circumstance any plainer to you.”

  “Done just fine,” Cheever assured him. “You’re wanting me to understand that you know what to do, you just don’t do it fast enough. That it?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. But there’s stuff you could be helping me out with—to both our benefits. You know your equations, don’t you?”

  Gods, but didn’t he. When he was a child, he had thought it a game—Uncle Daav, Cousin Er Thom—even Luken!—would throw out a partial piloting sentence and applaud lavishly when he completed it properly. On those occasions when he missed his line—often, at first—they would gently recite the correct response, and applaud again when he told it back without error.

  He had done the same with his own child; teaching him the nursery rhymes of pilots . . .

  Pat Rin looked up at the bulk of Cheever McFarland. Master Pilot, he reminded himself, and sighed. “I know my equations, Mr. McFarland. Yes.”

  “Good. I can’t force you to do it, but I think it’d be best for the ship—my judgment as Master Pilot, while we’re being clear on stuff—if you’d sit second for me.”

  The best interest of the ship must carry all before it. Pilot or no, the care and keeping of ships was bred into his bones. Korval, after all, was ships.

  Pat Rin bowed, novice to master.

  “Very well, Mr. McFarland, as you feel it is a matter of ship’s safety, I will sit in the second seat.”

  “Great,” Cheever said, and stretched, arms over his head, hands brushing the ceiling of the ship. “I’m gonna go get a shower and some caffeine. Meanwhile, you call the tower and get us moved to a hotpad, OK? Don’t forget to tell ’em about that orientation to ventral.”

  So saying he turned and exited the bridge, leaving Pat Rin glaring at nothing.

  After a time, he sighed, and moved over to the board to input the request to the tower.

  DAY 283

  Standard Year 1392

  Liad Department of Interior

  Command Headquarters

  SATISFIED, COMMANDER OF AGENTS closed the field report.

  Korval’s strengths—that it husbanded—one might say, hoarded—ships; that it valued the skills and reactions of pilots above any other skill a clanmember might possess; that they deliberately bred for pilots, thus propelling themselves to a pinnacle of the type . . .

  Those strengths had hidden a notable weakness.

  Pat Rin yos’Phelium, heir to Kareen, elder cousin to Val Con, who should by all right of blood and kinship, now stand as Korval Himself—excepting only that he was not a pilot.

  Crippled, in Korval’s eye, he had been cast aside, dismissed to a wastrel life of spoilt self-indulgence.

  The Department of the Interior, however, knew just how to value Pat Rin yos’Phelium, and his place within the Plan.

  Commander of Agents smiled slightly and lay his hand on the closed folder.

  Despite that the Department found it necessary to its own success to remove Korval from the board, yet it was true that the world, in some measure, required Korval. Lose a clan which held controlling interest in a triple-dozen industries on-planet, which controlled the pilots guild, funded the Scouts, which owned outright fifteen trading vessels and unnumbered smaller craft, not to speak of the yards which serviced them? The planetary economy trembled at the whisper of such calamity. Why, Korval owned the very dies from which cantra pieces were struck, only leasing them to the Moneyers Guild in twelve-year renewals stretching back to the time of the first Val Con yos’Phelium, Cantra’s heir.

  In any wise, it was no part of the Department’s Plan that Liad should be made bankrupt. It was all to the Department’s good that Liaden economy flourish and expand.

  Thus, if the economy demanded a Korval, then a Korval there would be.

  DAY 284

  Standard Year 1392

  Departing McGee

  CHEEVER MCFARLAND BULKED large over the controls of Fortune’s Reward, hands delicate and sure, nearly caressing in their motions. Despite his size he sat comfortably in the pilot’s chair, which was locked at the rearmost limits of its track. At this stage in the flight his attention was securely on the board—with its dozen of lights, meters, knobs, and switches—and on the screens ahead.

  The pilot’s choice of screens for the main board was sparse: centered was local space forward, with radar ranging imposed over the combined straight visual and near infrared view; rear view was a super wide angle in radar encompassing everything not on the front screen at half-size below it. Some few of the screens were surprising—especially the left corner screen, showing a double-deck transcription of the last 144 syllables of Com One’s radio communication in Terran—incoming on top, outgoing on the bottom.

  The co-pilot’s board was live, and Pat Rin yos’Phelium sat, ill-at-ease, in the chair before it. He scrupulously avoided the controls, concentrating instead on the Jump equations he was engaged in framing for the pilot’s approval. As if in testimony to the fact that he sat second by the pilot’s whim alone, instead of the proper view of space outside the ship, the screen above his board showed a mosaic of thumbnails: every system on the ship represented in an order known only to the pilot.

  Pat Rin finished his last calculation and filed it. Leaning back in his chair, as far away from the board as he could reasonably sit, he watched the screens as Cheever McFarland threaded Fortune’s Reward through the crowded spaceways of near orbit.

  From time to time Pat Rin saw a pause, a decision point, pass through the pilot’s hands. At the third such he glanced up and saw a new window open on the left.

  “I’m watching for long-range interception,” the Terran said, calmly matter-of-fact, “cause in here, with all this mess, the normal thing to do is be worried about the next 72 seconds or so, then the next 720 seconds, and not much beyond because so many of the orbits are tight and the maneuvering’s hectic. But if someone was looking for us to be Jumping from a particular point, more or less, they’d likely be close to an interception trajectory somewhere down the line, like three hours or so when a ship like ours might normally be expected to Jump.”

  A lesson in piloting, forsooth. Pat Rin moved a hand in acknowledgment.

  “And so right now, there’s a ship moving parallel, but that ain’t a problem—I doubt anybody’d be trying to chase us with an ore-ship. There’s also one summat behind that got underway from the repair docks about the time we hit orbit. Shows up fine on visual but the beacon on it’s a bit funny and out of adjustment, I’d say. They been tuning their orbit something fierce, just like a ship right out of dock might.”

  Pat Rin moved his hand again as Cheever checked in with control once more, confirming by voice his destination and learning that, “due to heavy traffic,” the Portmaster requested all ships add another quarter planetary diameter to Jump run-up.

  “Damn,” Cheever said under his breath and hit the com button.

  “Control, can we stay on original schedule? I’ve got a novice here calculating that Jump for all he’s worth and we’ll be in your way all day if he’s gotta start over!”

  The delay might have been due to more than the crawl of light across space; the answer was a half-chuckle. “Oh, aye, that’s a stet then, Fortune’s Reward. And I’m to tell you your novice owes a drink to the submaster next trip through.”

  “To hear is to obey, Control. Fortune’s Reward out.”

  Pat Rin glanced at his pilot quizzically.

  “I could have recalculated those equations—the quarter diameter is scarcely a—”

  A Terran headshake.

  “Sure it ain’t. But now we got an excuse when we Jump a bit ahea
d of time with all the wrong energy levels, just in case we’re being snooped.”

  And so they were prudent, on the off-chance that Korval’s enemy had found him. Cheever McFarland was a man who took his own advice, then, and built plans upon worst-case projections.

  “Tell you what,” the pilot was saying, “once we Jump I’ll adjust that side and you can shadow me inbound to Teriste. I’ll probably ask questions to see if you’re paying attention.”

  Pat Rin bit back a sharp retort. It was never good luck to argue with an elder willing to teach what was needed—especially with Plan B in effect.

  DAY 50

  Standard Year 1393

  Lytaxin Erob’s Medical Center

  THE NAMES OF THEIR kin had gained them entrance to the house and a rapid and willing guide to the place where their sister lay, recovering from her wounds.

  It was well, Edger thought, following Alys Tiazan Clan Erob, Cousin to Miri Robertson Tiazan Lady yos’Phelium, that they had not tarried, but had descended to the planet surface with all haste and come directly to this dwelling-place.

  Truth, it had been Sheather’s disquiet that had spurred them to seek their kin so speedily. Yet Sheather had studied Miri Robertson to a depth that none other of the Clutch had yet studied an individual of the Clans of Men, and Edger had been willing to heed his brother’s impatience.

  Nor was this impatience found to be excessive, once the door to Clan Erob’s house had been opened to them. The news given by Alys Tiazan was alarming in the extreme and Edger hoped most stringently that they had arrived with speed enough, and skill sufficient for the tasks which bore their names.

  Before him, the impossibly frail person Alys Tiazan ran. Her red hair, so like his sister’s, was made into double braids that lifted a little in the wind of her own passing. Walls barred her way, then slid silently and swiftly aside, allowing her, and, quickly after her, themselves, into a short, quiet hall, where a single man wearing the clothing and sidearm of a mercenary soldier stood at guard before a door.

  He looked up as they bore down upon them, frowned and moved a few steps forward, holding up his many-fingered hand, palm turned to them.

  “Hold it,” he said to Alys Tiazan. “You ain’t taking them in there, are you, kid?”

  “Indeed, I am,” she returned, somewhat breathlessly. “They have kin-right. My cousin will wish to see them immediately.”

  He was a well-grown male of the kind which named themselves “Terran,” yet he did have to look up quite some distance to survey both Edger and Sheather.

  “Kin right?” he repeated, eyes squinted a little.

  “The child speaks truly,” Edger answered. “Miri Robertson Tiazan, Lady yos’Phelium, Captain Redhead, as she is known here, is sister to myself and this my brother. We are likewise kin to he who is named here Val Con yos’Phelium Scout.”

  The soldier frowned down at Alys. “Orders was, kin visits only, and as few of them as possible. Cap’n Redhead ain’t hardly eight hours outta the ’doc, kid. She gets too tired, the techs’ll stick her back in the box, and you can depend on it she won’t like that.”

  “In fact,” Sheather spoke up, with a forcefulness much unlike his previous diffidence, “we are here precisely because we have heard alarming reports of our sister’s health. It would ease us, could we see her, speak with her, and make our own evaluation of her condition.”

  “Oh.” The soldier chewed his lip, then appeared to take a decision with a sharp nod of his head. “OK, I can see where you’d want to make sure she’s on the mend. I can let you in for a quick look, but like I said, there ain’t no profit to anybody in getting her tired out to where the techs take an interest. Especially not with her partner in the state he’s in.”

  Edger blinked. “We have heard that our brother’s situation is dire.”

  “Well,” the soldier said judiciously, turning to lay his hand on the door-plate, “he ain’t as bad as he was six days ago, but I sure wouldn’t want to trade places with him.” The door slid open and he stepped aside, waving a casual salute.

  “There you go. Remember what I told you, now.”

  “We will remember,” Sheather said, and followed his brother into the room where their sister lay, convalescent among the songless.

  ***

  RED-HAIRED MIRI ROBERTSON, lately captain of the Lytaxin Irregulars, lay against a mountain range of pillows, eyes closed. The room was full of sound—usual sickroom stuff: the bubble and babble of the machinery; the occasional rustle from the med tech there to tend them—and her. Funny, she thought, somewhat muzzily, how sickrooms always sounded just the same, Terran or Liaden, planetside or space based.

  Sighing—quietly, otherwise the tech would be after her to take a nap, like she just hadn’t spent six Standard Days unconscious in an autodoc—sighing, she marshaled her attention, deliberately blocking out the too-familiar sounds of the sickroom, and focusing on the place inside her head where she’d gotten used to finding the—ah, hell, call it the life force, call it the soul-shadow, or just call it the pattern, of her lifemate.

  Previously, this edifice had been scintillant, brilliant with color, cunning in its complexity. A little more recently, she had observed it fading, the clever interlacings unraveling with regal, horrifying precision. Val Con had been dying, then, of various wounds, the most serious being the bullet he’d taken off an Yxtrang Elite Guard while in the process of stealing an atmospheric fighter craft the guard had considered, reasonably enough, belonged to his outfit.

  Elite Guards used bullets with a smorgasbord of loads—explosives, hallucinogens, and other not-so-goodies. The bullet that had nicked Val Con had carried nerve poison. He hadn’t taken a full hit, which was the good news, a full hit being something that could drop a full-grown Yxtrang soldier, and probably melt your basic “a bit over average height—for a Liaden” on the spot.

  So, Val Con hadn’t died, though at that his luck was mixed on the day. They’d managed to share his other injuries between them so that she ended up in the ’doc for days, being healed of wounds she’d never taken, and he was still sealed in a crisis unit, not quite out of danger yet. Shan had explained it to her—all right, he’d tried to explain it to her, but she had a feeling she was going to have to get him to go over the tricky bits again, like how exactly she came up with acceleration injuries when her body had been passed out cold on the ground, miles away and below the plane she’d brought in when Val Con—

  Never mind, Robertson, she told herself. There ain’t any way to make sense outta it. Just stipulate it happened, OK? No use banging your head against the impossible.

  Banging her head against the impossible was also getting in the way of checking up on Val Con. She ground her teeth together and concentrated, feeling the sweat break out on her face. Chest tight, she craned inward, seeing nothing but gray, nothing but—it hadn’t used to be this hard!

  Abruptly, she had it—the pattern flared, bright and coherent, burning away the swirling fog.

  Miri swallowed.

  No doubt that this was Val Con. No doubt that he was alive. But there was—a division—a rift—interlockings sundered, portions isolated from the whole; here and there colors fluttered, pale, while other patches showed nearly translucent.

  “Oh, gods,” she whispered and bit her lip again. She absolutely did not want the attention of the med tech for the next while. She needed time to study this, to try to figure out just exactly what she was seeing.

  And what, if anything, she could do to fix it.

  Carefully, she brought her whole attention to one flickering sector, noticing what seemed to be fault lines—

  “Cousin Miri!” a young voice shrilled, which would’ve been enough to get her attention, without the med tech doing her bit for peace and quiet by snapping a High Liaden order to, “Remove yourselves at once!” while a voice big enough to rattle all the aching bones in her convalescing body boomed, “The songs are all of discord, brother!”

  Miri opened her eyes
, took in nine-almost-ten Standards old Alys Tiazan, hair neatly braided and hands on her barely-existent hips, glaring at the med tech, while two large, shelled people moved with ponderous purpose toward the wall of instruments.

  “Remove them immediately,” the tech ordered, but Alys was having none of it.

  “They are kin and have the right to be here! Yon lady is my cousin by blood-tie and I myself will—”

  “PIPE DOWN!” Miri yelled, or tried to yell. The ‘pipe’ was pretty good, though not up to her best. ‘Down’ suffered from her voice squeaking out into a cough. Still, she managed to achieve the desired effect: Everybody got real quiet and all faces turned to her. She glared at each in turn, trying to ignore the sweat running down the side of her face, and the way her pulse was pounding way too hard against her eardrums.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you people?” she snarled, somewhat faintly. “Don’t you know there’s a sick person in here?”

  “Cousin . . .” Alys began.

  “I said pipe down,” Miri interrupted, then dropped into ragged Low Liaden, in case the kid hadn’t caught it. “That means: Be still, child, and don’t dispute your elders.”

  Alys looked stubborn, but managed a creditable bow. “Yes, cousin.”

  The med tech was sputtering. Miri ignored her for the moment and looked up at the tallest of the two tall non-humans.

  Eight foot high and bottle-green, the room’s soft light waking gleams of malachite and cobalt among the tiles of his magnificent shell, eyes as big as dinner plates, yellow and slitted, like a cat’s; four hundred pounds, if he weighed an ounce—her brother, Twelfth Shell Fifth Hatched Knife Clan of Middle River’s Spring Spawn of Farmer Greentrees of the Spearmaker’s Den, The Edger. May the gods have mercy on her soul.

  “Glad to see you, Edger,” she said.

  “Sister, the song of my heart achieves fullness in your presence.”

  Wow. She looked to the second, smaller, and less grandly shelled Turtle. It struck her that he looked worried, though she’d’ve been hard put to say how she had formed that opinion.