A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  “He was in a crash not too long ago and the leg never healed right,” Suzan said, meeting the eyes straitly. “You know about the crash—you’re the master pilot. I remember your name from the report.”

  “Do you?” He look at her with renewed interest. “Where did you get the report, I wonder?”

  She snorted. “I’m a registered pilot on this port. I used my card and pulled the file. Even Terrans hear rumors—and we’d heard one about a crackerjack pilot who’d been drummed outta the local Guild for not having the good taste to die in a crash. I read the reports—yours and the one they liked better. Tried to get the sim, too, but the Guild won’t lend it.”

  The slanted white brows pulled together. “Won’t lend it? Yet you are, as you point out, a pilot on this port.”

  “Jabun.” The voice was faint and none too steady. Both Shan and Suzan jumped before staring down at the wounded pilot. His eyes were open, a dilated and glittering black, the brown hair stuck to his forehead in wet, straggling locks.

  “Jabun,” he repeated, the Liaden words running rapidly and not altogether in mode. “Not enough that they had me cast out. I must die the true death, if he must hire a wolf pack to the task. Dishonor. Danger! They must not find—” He struggled, trying to get his good arm around.

  Shan put his hands firmly on the boy’s shoulders. “Pilot. Be at ease.”

  The unseeing black eyes met his. “When will they have done?” he demanded. “When will they—”

  Shan pushed, exerting force as well as force of will. “Lie down,” he said firmly, in a mode perilously close to that he would use with a feverish child. “You are wounded and will do yourself further injury.”

  “Wound—” Sense flickered. “Gods.” He twisted, weakly; Shan held him flat with no trouble.

  “Suzan!”

  She snapped forward, touching his unwounded shoulder. “Here, Pilot. I’m OK, see?”

  Apparently, he did. The tension left him and he lay back, understanding in his eyes now. Shan frowned.

  “You accuse Clan Jabun seriously,” he said, in the Liaden mode of comrade, and thinking of his own discoveries of the evening before. “Have you proof?”

  “The pack leader . . .”

  He glanced at Suzan, who jerked her head to the left, where two Port Proctors were talking to sullen man in a scarred leather jacket.

  “All right,” he said, in Terran, for Suzan Fillips’ benefit. “I will speak to the pack leader. Pilot dea’Judan, you will remain here quietly with your copilot.”

  The glittering eyes stabbed his. “Yes.”

  One of the proctors looked up as he approached and came forward to intercept him. “Master Trader?” he inquired courteously.

  Shan considered him. “One hears,” he said, delicately, “that yon brigand was hired by a House to deal death to a dead man.”

  The Proctor sighed. “It produces the name of Jabun—but this is not unusual, you know, sir. They grasp at anything they hope will win them free of the present difficulty.”

  “Just so,” Shan murmured, and drifted back toward Suzan Fillips and Ren Zel dea’Judan.

  “I believe you,” he said to the wounded pilot’s hot eyes, and looked thoughtfully at the Terran.

  From the entrance came the sounds of some slight agitation among the guards, who parted to admit a pilot of middle years, his pale hair going to gray, his leather gleaming as if new-made.

  “It’s him!” shouted the man who had been the wolf pack leader, and was silenced by his guards.

  A Proctor moved forward, holding his hands up to halt the newcomer.

  “Sir, this is the scene of a death by misadventure; I must ask you to leave unless you—”

  “Ah, is it a death?” The man’s face displayed such joy that Shan swallowed, revolted. “I must see for myself!”

  The Proctor moved his hand as if to deny, but another signed assent and the three of them strode across the room to the covered form.

  “Your lordship is to understand that this is . . . unpleasant,” the first Proctor said. “The nose has been forcibly crushed into the brain by a blow . . .”

  “That is of no matter,” the newcomer snapped. “Show me!”

  The Proctors exchanged glances, then bent and lifted the covering back. Shan rose to his feet, eyes on His Lordship’s proud, eager face, glowing with an anticipation so—

  “What nonsense is this?” the man shouted. “This is not he!”

  “I am here . . . Suzan, help me stand. Jabun, I am here!”

  The voice was barely a croak, nearly inaudible. The bloodied figure gained his feet, more than half-supported by his grim-faced copilot.

  “The dead man you want . . . the dead man you want is here!” Ren Zel gritted out, and Shan stepped back, giving Jabun clear sight of his victim.

  “You!” Jabun flung forward one step, hatred plain in his comely face, then froze, as if he had abruptly understood what he had done.

  “Speaking to a dead man?” Ren Zel rasped. “Out of Code, Jabun.” He drew a sobbing breath. “Look on me—dead by your malice. One death was not enough, one Balance insufficient . . .” He swayed and Shan moved to offer his support as well. Ren Zel gasped.

  “You, who deal in life and death—you will be the death of all you are pledged to hold!”

  A gasp ran through the room, and Shan felt a tingle in the close air of the poolroom, as if a thunderstorm were charging.

  Jabun stood as if struck; and Shan heard a med tech mutter, “Dramliza, you fool! Will you play Balance games against a wizard?”

  Ren Zel straightened, informed by an energy that had nothing to do with physical strength.

  “Jabun, you are the last delm of your House. The best of your line shall lifemate a Terran to escape your doom. The rest of your kin will flee; they will deny their name and their blood, and ally themselves with warehousemen and fisherfolk for the safety such alliances buy!

  “Hear me, Jabun! In my blood is told your tale—witness all, all of you see him! See him as he is!”

  “Pilot—” began Suzan, but Shan doubted Ren Zel heard her worried murmur, lost as he was in the dubious ecstacy of a full Foretelling.

  “It is Jabun the pod-pirate,” he cried, and Shan felt the hairs raise on his arms, recalling his own researches. “Jabun the thief! Jabun the murderer! Beware of his House and his money!”

  The poolroom was so completely quiet that Shan heard his own heartbeat, pounding in his ears.

  Jabun was the first to recover, to look around at the faces that would not—quite—return his regard.

  “Come, what shall you? This—this is a judged and Balanced murderer, dead to Code, clan and kin. It is raving, the shame of its station has no doubt broken its wits. We have no duty here. It is beneath our melant’i to notice such a one.”

  “Then why,” came the voice of the man Suzan had identified as the wolf pack leader, “did you give us a cantra piece to beat him to death?”

  Jabun turned and stared at his questioner, moved his shoulders under the bright leather. “Proctors, silence that person.”

  “Perhaps,” murmured one of the two who had shown him the dead brigand. “I fear I must ask you to remain here with us, your lordship. We have some questions that you might illuminate for us.”

  “I?” Jabun licked his lips. “I think not.”

  “We have authority here, sir,” the second Proctor said, and stepped forward, beckoning. “This way, if you will, Your Lordship.”

  “Of your kindness, Pilots,” Ren Zel dea’Judan said, his Liaden slurring and out of mode, “I would sit . . .”

  Shan and Suzan got him into a chair, where he sagged for a moment before reaching out none-too-steadily to touch his copilot’s sleeve.

  “Tell Christopher,” he managed, and his Terran was blurred almost out of sense. “I—apologize. The hall—his pilots—I did not know. It is not done . . .”

  Suzan patted his knee. “It’s OK, Pilot. You leave Chris to me.”

  S
han nodded, reached into his sleeve and pulled out a card. He held it out to Suzan Fillips, who blinked and shook her head.

  Patiently, he held the card extended, and looked seriously into her eyes.

  “Should you find yourself at risk over this incident,” he said, “use the beam code on the card.”

  She licked her lips. “I—”

  “Take. It.” The wounded pilot’s voice was barely audible, but the note of command was strong. The woman’s hand rose. She slipped the card out of Shan’s fingers and slid it immediately into her license pocket.

  “Good,” said Ren Zel, and Shan saw now only a wounded pilot, with no trace of the power of Foretelling, nor voice of command . . .

  There was a clatter at the door. Shan looked around and spied Vilt and Rusty of his own crew, raised a hand, and then glanced down at Ren Zel dea’Judan.

  “Pilot, I offer you contract: a Standard year’s service on the Dutiful Passage, after which we will renegotiate or, if you wish, you will be set down on the world of your choice.”

  Ren Zel swallowed, and looked up to meet his gaze firmly. “You are Liaden,” he managed. “I am dead.”

  “No,” Shan said, in earnest Terran. “You really must allow my skill to be better than that.”

  Almost, it seemed that the wounded boy smiled. The lids drooped over the fevered eyes.

  “I accept,” he murmured. “One Standard year.”

  A Matter of Dreams

  ON SINTIA, it’s the dreaming that first marks a witch.

  A child will dream the minutiae of life, relate the sending in the morning, all innocent and dewy-eyed; astonished when the dream events turn true next day—or next one.

  She’s watched then, for grandma will have contacted Temple, never doubt it; and after a time the child will dream the name of the one she had been Before. Then she’ll be brought to Circle and trained to be one with the Dream.

  I know the way because Jake used to talk about his Mam, my gran’mam, who’d Dreamed a Dream and had the training and then left the Temple and who she’d been—for love, Jake said, and for stars.

  I’ve never dreamed the Naming-Dream, being outworlder, even though witch-blood. I figure only the damned come to me—those who died unquiet or outside the love of the Holy; those who somehow lost their Name. I figure that, but I don’t say it. I dream the dreams and I let them go. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they come true.

  The first time I saw Her was dreamsight.

  She was in a port side bar—too coarse a place for Her to be—standing straight in her starry blue robe, with her breasts free and her face shining with power, black hair crackling lightning and spread around her like an aurora. Her eyes—her eyes were black, and in the dream she saw me. At her feet was broken glass; the shine of a knife.

  She was young—not above fifteen—with the silver bangles hiding half of one slim arm. But for all that, I wanted to go down on my knees in front of her and lay my cheek against her mound from which had sprung the worlds and the stars and the deep places between. That’s how it was, in the dream.

  But then the dream ended, as they do, and there was Lil, yelling about orbit and was I coming or not, so it was out of the cot and let the dream go and get about the business of making a living.

  I never talked to Lil about the dreams. They scared her, and there’s nothing worth that. Still, she’s witch-blood too and knows as sure I do when I’ve dreamt, though she never dreams at all.

  “Well?” she spat at me, spiteful the way sisters are, within the protection of Us against Them. “Was it wet this time?”

  “Keep it down and keep it clean,” I answered, no more gentle, because there was the flutter in the nine-dial I didn’t like, which meant relying on number eight, a thing that had been a bad idea since I was copilot and Mam on prime.

  “Where’s the passenger?” I asked, because there was a certain amount of care taken, when you’d been paid hard coin to deliver someone intact to a place.

  “Webbed in gentle as a roolyet,” Lil said and I gave a grin for the old adventure, though putting Mona Luki through the orbiting sequence was proving more of a problem than usual.

  “Shit,” muttered Lil, hands over her part of the business. “We gotta get that reset before we lift, Fiona.”

  “On Sintia?”

  “Federated port,” she answered, which was true. And, “Credit’s good,” which was not.

  “Yeah,” I said, not wanting to argue the point and have her start to worry. “We’ll let our passenger off and see if we can’t patch it. Bound to be junkyards.”

  “Flying a junkyard,” she answered, which I should have known she would. “Mam’d have a fit, Fiona . . .”

  And that was another line of thought better left alone.

  “Mind your board,” I growled, and she sighed, and looked rebellious, and turned her head away.

  Tower came on in another few seconds, with an offer of escort, if we had equipment trouble. I turned down the escort, which was expensive, but requisitioned a repair pad, which came gratis, they having noted trouble, and we got her down without any bad glitches.

  Our passenger, that was something else.

  Cly Nelbern got her first sight of Sintia Port there in screen number one, looked sour and flung herself into prime pilot’s chair like she had a right to it. Lil had her mouth half-opened before she caught my headshake, but I doubt Nelbern would have heard a shout just then.

  I finished making my coffee-toot and ambled over, leaned a hip against the chair-back and spoke over her head. “We can give you a hand with your baggage,” I said, “or you can leave it stored. We’ll be here a day or two. Repairs.”

  Nelbern gave one of those snorts we’d decided between us passed for her laughing and shook her head, real gentle, eyes still and always on that screen.

  “So eager to lose me, Captain?”

  “Not to say,” I answered, calm, like Mam’d taught us to talk to dirtsiders. “It’s just that you paid cash money for Jumps in a hurry. I figured you had an appointment.”

  “An appointment,” she repeated and snorted. “An appointment.” She licked her lips like the phrase tasted sweet and glanced up at me out of wide blue eyes.

  “As it happens, Captain, I do have an—appointment. Yes.” She smiled, which I had never liked in her, and nodded. “I wonder if I might impose upon the good natures of yourself and your sister just a bit further.”

  I gritted my teeth and brought the cup up to keep it from showing; feeling Lil tense up behind me. I was mortally sick of dirtside manners and a stranger on our ship, whether she carried an ambassador’s ransom in Terran bits or no. It was on the tip of my tongue to say so, though not as blunt as that, when she turned full around to face me.

  “I noticed a bit of a boggle on the way in, I thought,” she said, in that conversational way officials use when it’s bound to cost you plenty. I stared down at her and shrugged.

  “Told you we’d be here a day or so.”

  “Indeed. Repairs, I think you said.” She stared, sizing me up, maybe, though I was sure she’d done that long ago. “Repairs to the central mag coil don’t come cheap, Captain; and it’s hardly anything you’d like to trust to the junkyard and a gerryrig.” She smiled. “If you had a choice.”

  I felt Lil behind me like a wound spring, and in my heart I cursed all dirtsiders—especially this one. I gritted my teeth and then bared them, not caring a whit for manners.

  “So now I’ve got a choice, have I?”

  “Certainly you have a choice.” She brought her hand up, and I focused on the thing that gleamed there; did a double-stare and nearly dumped my drink in her lap.

  She was holding a Liaden cantra piece.

  I stared, not at the coin—enough money for several choices and maybe a luxury, too—but at her face—and read no more there than I ever had, save it was the first time I thought her eyes looked mad.

  “What in starlight do you want?” That was Lil, coming up like she was stal
king tiger, bent at the waist, her eyes on the shine of the money.

  Cly Nelbern looked up at me and she smiled before turning to face my sister and hold the coin up high.

  “An escort,” she said softly. “Just an escort, Ms. Betany, as I walk around the town. In case the natives are restless.”

  “An escort,” I scoffed, around the cold dread in my belly. “On Sintia, a woman needs no escort—unless you’ll be breaking into the Temple?”

  The mad eyes gleamed my way, though she forbore to smile again. “Not the Temple, Captain. Of course not.” She did smile then, her eyes going back to Lil. “That would be foolish.”

  “Then us not being fools—” I began, short-tempered with something near terror.

  But Lil shot a glance that silenced me long enough for her to gabble: “A cantra, Fiona! New parts, backups, a new ’doc, coffee . . .” Her eyes were back on Cly Nelbern and I knew right then I’d lost her.

  “Lillian!” I snapped, as much like Mam as I could.

  Too late. “I’ll do it,” she told the dirtsider. And held out her hand for the money.

  I sat down slow on the arm of the copilot’s chair and brought the tepid coffee-toot up to sip. There was nothing else to do, the word having been given. Nothing except:

  “I’ll be coming along as well, then. If that coin’s so wide a treasure, I reckon it’ll pay berth-cost while we escort this lady ’round town.”

  Nelbern laughed, a half-wild sound no more pleasant than her smile. “Think I won’t pay, Captain?” She sent a brilliant glance into my face, and flicked the coin to Lil.

  “Order your repairs,” she said, standing up. “And you’ll—both—be ready to come with me in one hour.”

  She sauntered off toward her cabin and I looked at my sister, standing there with her hand clenched ’round that money, and her cheeks flushed with lust of it and I sighed and hovered a second between sad and mad; figured neither would mend it and stood up myself.

  “I’ll take first shower,” I said, tossing the cup into the unit as I went past.

  At the door I looked back, but she was showing back to me, head half-tipped, like she hadn’t even noticed that I’d gone.