Korval's Game

by Sharon Lee

  Gods, was he? Was anyone?

  A flash of panic fragmented his inner sight. He took a hard breath, fighting for balance, and heard his father’s voice from years gone by, stern and sweet and beloved.

  “We do the best that we are able, my child. We make the best decision we may, dependent upon our experience and our training. It is what we owe to kin and to those who reside under our care. If it were true, I would tell you that necessity makes us wise. What I will tell you is that we all do our best; that we all make errors; and that those who love us will forgive us.”

  Shan gasped, and deliberately drew a calming breath into his lungs; another; and a third. Centered once more, he opened his inner eyes and beheld his brother, injured as he was and with only Shan to stand between him and a Clutch turtle’s fearsome singing.

  “I am able,” he said, keeping his regard upon Val Con; only upon Val Con, whose future depended upon his brother Shan, and who would forgive him, if he failed.

  Edger began to sing.

  ***

  MIRI LAY BACK on her damp pillows and looked up at Sheather.

  “Guess we better get dancing, in case the med tech comes back with her boss.”

  Sheather blinked his eyes, first one, then the other, solemnly. “Perhaps we will dance in a future time, you and I. It occurs to me that I would learn much from such an exercise. But, for now, I ask that you merely listen to the song I have crafted for you.”

  Right. Miri bit her lip, trying to remember that Shan hadn’t looked like anything had hurt during the little song that Edger had sung his knee. Hadn’t looked anything but surprised, really, and kinda . . . dreamy, like Val Con looked when he was deep into playing the ’chora.

  “You need have no fear,” Sheather said, in what passed for soft from Clutch. “I am your brother. Your heart has spoken to my heart. I will not cause you pain.”

  Which, come to think of it, sounded suspiciously like a Liaden promise. Miri sighed. What’s wrong with you, Robertson? Gettin squeamish in your old age? If Sheather wants to cut your throat, his knife’s way too sharp to hurt.

  “Sister?”

  She grinned up at the long green length of him. “s’okay. You sing; I’ll listen. Fair division of labor.”

  “Just so,” said Sheather and paused. Miri sagged against her pillows and closed her eyes. Eventually, she heard something that might have been a note, or possibly just the wind, combing through leaves . . .

  It was spring, and she was in a garden, strolling along a stone-lined pathway. It was a meandering path, all but overgrown in some places by effusions of flowers. In the branches just over her head, birds sang, oblivious to the passage of a stranger through their garden. The perfume of growing things was an intoxicant.

  The path spiraled in, ending abruptly at a glade. She paused on the last stone, looking across a stretch of blue-green grass at the trunk of an enormous tree.

  The glade was dim under the vast lattice work of branches, and she blinked, then grinned as her adjusting vision made out the slim form of a man leaning against the massive trunk. Unhesitating, grinning wide enough to crack her face, she started across the springy grass.

  The man stepped away from the tree and came forward to meet her. He was wearing a beat-up black leather jacket open over a fine white shirt, soft dark trousers and comfortable boots. His hair was dark brown, his eyes were green, and the grin that split the beardless golden face was every bit as wide as hers.

  “Cha’trez.” The soft, beloved voice caressed her ears and she laughed for the sheer joy of hearing it.

  “Val Con.” She grabbed his hand and stood holding it like an idiot, too damn happy to think of anything to say.

  “You look good,” she did say, finally—which sounded funny until she remembered that she knew he was in the catastrophe ’doc, being healed of injuries that should have killed him.

  “Looks deceive,” Val Con murmured, which was a joke. He tugged on her hand, urging her to walk with him back to the base of the monumental tree. “I am very glad you came here, Miri.”

  “Yah?” She slanted a glance at the side of his face. “Mind telling me where here is?”

  “Not at all,” her lifemate said. He stepped right up to the tree and turned to face her, laying his free hand against the trunk.

  “This is Jelaza Kazone—the safest place in the galaxy.”

  She’d’ve pegged that as another joke, normally, because neither one of them put much stock in “safe.” But she felt a stroke of . . . certainty . . . come right out of the core of him and into the core of her.

  It took her balance, as such things still did, though the gods knew the strands of them were so tangled together it was by no means certain which one would fall down, if either caught a pellet. She felt Val Con’s fingers tighten on hers and she flung her free hand out to brace against the tree.

  Welcoming gladness overfilled her, an embrace of green joyousness so vivid that she staggered, vision whiting, ears roaring—and might have fallen, except her partner was there to catch her and ease her down to sit with him on the soft grass, their backs against the Tree.

  Slowly, the jubilation faded. Miri blinked the glade into focus, ears registering the racket of bird song once more. She sighed and closed her eyes, settling against the trunk that tangibly warmed her back in a sort of physical smile.

  “Cha’trez?” Val Con’s voice carried an edge of worry.

  She shook her head and looked at him. “It behave like this often?”

  His smile glimmered. “Only when it likes you.”

  “Lucky me,” she said and leaned her head against the warm bark. “You know, of course,” she said to Val Con’s bright green eyes, “that all this is only a dream.”

  One eyebrow lifted. “As much as it must naturally pain me to disagree with my love and my lifemate—”

  “A dream,” Miri repeated, interrupting him ruthlessly. “I got out of the ’doc this morning. You—” She put her hand over his heart, feeling its firm beat against her palm.

  “You’re broke into six dozen pieces, Boss. They figure to get you outta the Last Hope sometime in the next week, Standard.” She sighed.

  “I wish you’d stop pulling these damn fool stunts,” she said, trying to sound severe. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  “I’m sorry, Miri,” he said meekly and she laughed, flinging forward suddenly to hug him.

  “I’m sorry, too. Gods, I miss you. Miss you enough to dream you this hard . . .”

  “This is not a dream, Miri,” Val Con breathed in her ear, his arms tight around her. “This is Jelaza Kazone.”

  “The safest place in the galaxy,” she said against his shoulder. “Right.” She sighed and straightened out of the embrace. “We won, by the way.”

  He stared at her blankly for the beat of five before understanding dawned in the green eyes.

  “Ah,” he said, “the Yxtrang. That is good.”

  “You could say.” She shook her head. “Happens reinforcements showed up in orbit just about the time we was finishing that business at the airfield. I ain’t got all the details, but Shan and Beautiful sketched it in for me. Long and short—our backup is Suzuki and every merc who happened to be at liberty when the call came through, plus a Clutch rockship, captained by Edger.” She grinned, remembering something else. “Edger and Sheather are here—there. Wherever. Got a serious problem with our course of treatment. Threw the tech outta my room and—hold it.” She closed her eyes, trying to focus.

  “Miri?”

  “Wait, wait. I—” Her memory abruptly came through with the gruesome details of the last hour, and also a spike of pure terror. She opened her eyes and looked into his face, which she couldn’t be doing, and there was more, worse, than him just being bust up . . .

  “The techs say you’re not going to be able to pilot,” she said, hearing her voice waver. “They say—the nerve damage—you might not be able to walk, at first, and there’s something the matter with—with my
. . . seeing . . . you. They—”

  “No.” He caught her hands in his. “Miri, think: Edger and Sheather are come, and they have thrown the med techs out. And then?”

  “Then . . .” Then what? Right, she had it. “They sung Shan’s knee better and said they could fix us up all right and tight. Edger and Shan went off to sing at you. Sheather—Sheather must be singing to me right now.” She sighed, sharply. “My head hurts.”

  He grinned at her. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Know all about it, do you?”

  “More than I had used to do,” Val Con said seriously. “I—whatever happened that . . . allowed you to pilot that craft after my body failed me . . .” He reached out and touched her cheek, eyes shadowed. “Miri, I don’t know what we are become.”

  “Greater than the sum of our parts?” she asked and saw him frown.

  “That is—?”

  “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” Miri recited. “Maybe what happened—however it happened—is that we built an us-pattern which is . . . stronger than either you or me alone.”

  The green eyes gleamed. “Together,” he murmured, “we are hell on wheels.”

  Miri grinned. “Like that. Maybe. Least it gives us a theory to play with.”

  Val Con tipped his head. “It does not distress you, this . . . new intimacy?”

  “Person can get used to the damnedest things,” she said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t trade what we got—whatever it is—for a Class A Jumpship.”

  “There’s no need to make that trade,” Val Con commented. “Korval owns several Class A Jumps. Only tell me which you choose to reserve for your use and it is done.”

  She stared at him, then grinned, slightly lopsided. “I keep forgetting how rich you are.”

  “Now, there, you are out. yos’Phelium is not nearly so wealthy a line as yos’Galan—they being traders, you see, and yos’Phelium tied to administration.”

  “And mayhem,” Miri added.

  “From time to time,” he agreed. “One must do something to relieve the tedium. However, Clan Korval itself is . . . influential. We own yards, and ships, houses, businesses . . . dea’Gauss will reveal all, when we are arrived home. My information is several years out of date, but I don’t expect that Nova has run us off our legs.”

  “We going back to Liad?” Miri asked, watching him.

  “Eventually, we must. The Department of the Interior—that must be Balanced, and not only on Korval’s account. I have a duty, as the Captain’s heir, to keep the passengers safe from peril. The Department preys on all of Liad, and on all Liadens. That will end.”

  Miri frowned. “Captain’s heir? What captain?”

  “Eh?” He blinked, then shook his head, rueful. “I have forgotten that you have not yet read the Diaries. The Passage carries a complete transcription. Ask Shan, when you are returned, to provide them to you. You will need to know our history and the decisions which have gone before ours, when we are delm.”

  Right. “We likely to be delm soon?”

  He sighed and took her hand. “Soon, yes. Nova holds the Ring in trust, and has proved herself able on many paths. But she cannot Balance the Department of the Interior. That, cha’trez, is for us.” He glanced up suddenly, brows pulled together, as if he had heard someone call his name.

  “Ah. I must return.” He stood, and bent to offer her a hand. She slid her fingers into his and rose smoothly, then stood looking into his eyes.

  “Val Con—” Her throat closed, and it was all she could do to blink the tears away.

  He stepped forward and slid his arms around her, hugging her tight as her arms slipped ’round his neck.

  “It will be well, Miri,” he whispered in her ear. “Gods, time runs—give me your kiss to bear away.”

  She raised her mouth, hungrily. Scant heartbeats later, they relinquished the embrace with equal reluctance, and Val Con turned toward the pathway.

  “Until soon, Miri,” he said.

  “Until soon, Val Con,” she whispered, and watched him move away across the grass, quick and silent and graceful. She turned her face aside for a moment, and when she looked up, he was gone.

  Alone, she stood in the glade, listening to the birds and to the wind, gently combing the moist, spring leaves.

  ***

  THEY HAD SEEDED the fragmented nervous system with a double-dozen crystalline notes, and turned to the larger problem of weaving the unraveled pattern whole. Shan saw himself within a gray, ill landscape, Edger’s song ranging somewhat before him, seeking, as would a hunt-beast, and wherever it passed, color took root and began to glow.

  Up ahead, the song snagged on a sullen, dusty outcropping, disturbing murky complaints of burnt sienna and umber. Shan extended himself and caught the note, holding it frozen while he examined this anomaly.

  It had the taste of something constructed, yet it reacted when he put his will upon it, hissing in a febrile hostility that said wrongness to his Healer senses.

  He widened his area of perception, seeing how it was laced, haphazard, into his brother’s soul—laced twice, now that he looked more closely, with some of the original rough bindings broken and replaced by stuff somewhat finer and recognizable as the same material of which the rest of the pattern was formed.

  Carefully, he put his will against the edifice, felt it snarl and jerk, like a half-tamed dog, straining against the newer, finer lacing. Wet red numbers flared, foretelling doom and dire consequence. Shan reached forth and shushed them.

  Once more, he brought his attention to the newer bindings, recognizing Val Con in the knots and redoubled lacings. So. His brother valued this thing, whatever it was, but did not care to trust it. Well and good.

  He cast his will over the edifice, calmed its hostility with a kiss, ran his hands along the shape of it, smoothing away the kinks of falsehood, closing the access ports of strangers, draining off the poison pooled at its core. Then he withdrew to the place where Edger’s note reposed in patience and contemplated the results of his efforts.

  Its color was better—richly topaz, with glints of copper—its shape more pleasing, less intrusive, nor did it snarl when he touched it with his will, but merely held itself in readiness. It would do.

  He hoped.

  He removed the compulsion from the note in progress, allowing it to swell forth and encompass the thing—whatever it was—and mold it irrevocably into the totality of Val Con.

  DAY 286

  Standard Year 1392

  Teriste MidPort

  Panake House,

  Field of Fire,

  Speculator’s Trust

  AS IT TRANSPIRED, Cheever McFarland knew Teriste, though not the side that Pat Rin knew. Cheever knew the repair shops, both large and small, and had offered to arrange to have the modest Tree-and-Dragon sigil on the ship removed, or covered; which offer Pat Rin refused after some moments of consideration.

  Fortune’s Reward already appeared on the day-board, and was registered with the portmaster, and while it was true that it would very soon be desirable for it to become another ship entirely, registered to a fictional owner from a far outworld, it would perhaps be best to have those adjustments made in a place somewhat less . . . popular . . . than Teriste.

  Pilot McFarland also knew numerous local eateries catering to Terran or mixed crews, and it was to one of those they repaired before they moved forward with the various tasks of the day.

  At the Panake House, Cheever’s jacket—or perhaps his face—won them entry into the roomy and more comfortable inner sanctum with a cheerful, “This way, pilots!” from the beaming host.

  The menus were on the table and coffee poured before Pat Rin could refuse.

  The offer to “stow those bags” was waved away, politely acknowledged, and followed by a “back in two” as the waiter hurried to refill the cups at another table.

  The menu, for all that it was in Terran—a language Pat Rin read well—was next to incomprehensible. The “slabs”
and “stacks” offered for his delectation were meaningless, as were the supposed qualifiers: thick, short, full . . .

  He needn’t have concerned himself. His companion intercepted the waiter with a wave of his big hand.

  “Two Morning Specials; double medium slices, and c-juice.”

  This repast, when it arrived, proved to be a stack of flatbreads which one—taking Cheever McFarland as one’s model—doused with various liquids and jams; recognizable eggs; and several patties of ground or pressed meat, each about the size of one the flatbreads.

  Warily, Pat Rin sampled the various offerings. The juice drink was familiar enough; the other flavors pleasantly spicy. He had a bit more of each.

  “This here,” Cheever said, around a mouthful of flatbread. “This is a hard-working port. This place here is always open, and pilots always get the best tables. Take whatever they got on special and you’ll get a good, cheap meal.”

  Pat Rin glanced up from his plate. “However, I am not a pilot.”

  McFarland forked a meat patty into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

  “You can pass though,” he said eventually. “We get you a jacket and nobody’ll doubt you know Jump.”

  He emptied his coffee mug, waved it in the general direction of a waiter, then shook it gently at Pat Rin.

  “If we’re going low or something, you’re gonna have to learn to drink this stuff like you mean it.”

  Pat Rin raised an eyebrow, looked at his nearly untouched mug, and smiled slightly.

  “I see that I face greater hazards than I had thought,” he said in quiet Terran. Deliberately, he picked the mug up and took a long slow sip of the dark beverage. He sighed slightly, wishing for some quiet morning tea, and sipped again as the waiter hove into view, bearing a oversized carafe.

  “Nah, now this isn’t too bad,” said Cheever. “If we get to a place where I only drink a sip, you can pass . . .”