Loose Cannon

by Sharon Lee

  He packed his sketches and walked with her to the shop, his eyes as elsewhere as his mind. Twice she had to repeat herself while she spoke with him, and then he disappeared into the back room to work as soon as they reached the store.

  In the afternoon he had rushed out of the back room, complaining that she’d not told him the time, and stormed out, on his way to a lecture he particularly wanted to see. Worse, he stormed back, having left his sketchbook and wallet, and dashed off with nary a backward glance. When he didn’t return by closing—he sometimes went to discussion groups after the lectures—she’d not expected him to come by her apartment, and he didn’t, which grated mightily.

  In the morning he wandered in very late, hung over and exhausted, explaining that he’d met a pack of Scouts at the lecture and talked with them until the barkeep announced shift-change at dawn. He was animated, nearly wildly so, explaining that he might “have a line on” the Scout who had helped him at Djymbolay; that his conversations of the evening had revealed that he owed Balance to that Scout; that he might have an idea for yet another painting; and that when he had more money there was a world he’d have to travel to and—

  “I have an appointment, Bell,” Cyra said abruptly. “Tell me later!”

  She rushed out the door, barely confident—and barely caring—that he’d heed the advent of a customer.

  Her appointment was with her tongue—had she stayed and heard more she surely would have said hurtful words.

  So she walked, nearly oblivious to the sounds of transports—more this day than others since a portion of the port would be closed late in the afternoon for some final tricksy bit of work for the expansion—and found herself several blocks from her usual streets, in a very old section, where the buildings and the people were barely above tumbledown.

  Surprisingly, she saw Debbie-the-pastry-girl hurrying from one of the least kept brick-fronts; Number 83 it was, a regrettable four-story affair sporting ungainly large windows and peeling paint. The peaked, slate roof suggested that the building was several hundred Standards old, and it looked like it had no repair since the day it was built.

  Heart falling, she reached into her card case, and removed the slip of paper she had from Bell the day he’d agreed to share his direction with her: Number 83 Corner Four Ave, Room 15.

  A shuttle’s long rumble began then; she could feel the sidewalk atremble as she watched the pastry girl’s blue-and-green hair disappear in the distance. Also on the paper was the pad combination, and with the whine of the shuttle rising behind her, and then over, she stood, and for a moment was tempted to enter Number 83 and find Room 15, open the door, and see if—if…

  She turned and walked all the way home for lunch, grasping the paper tightly in her fist.

  When she got back to the store, calmer, but heartsore, there was Bell’s back vaguely visible in the back room. He heard her enter and yelled out over his shoulder “Any luck?”

  “No,” she said, quietly. “No luck, Bell.”

  She slept badly alone, and the rumble of the transports, joined with the not entirely foreign sounds of proctor-jitneys blaring horns as they answered a nighttime summons hadn’t helped.

  And now, on her store step across the road in the dawn light?

  Debbie, cuddling Bell’s good jacket in her arms.

  *

  “BELL’S OK,” THE GIRL said quickly, shaking her absurd hair back from a remarkably grimy face. “He wasn’t bleeding all that much and the medic said he’ll do. The proctor, now, he’ll be OK, too, other’n his pride’s pretty well hurt by getting really whomped—I mean decked in front of all his buddies. But there’s gonna be some fines to pay, I guess, and he’s gotta have a place to live and—”

  Cyra stood staring, hard put to sort this tumbled message, clinging at last to the simple, “Bell’s OK…”

  Debbie was looking at her with desperate eyes. “Cyra, you’re a lucky girl, you know? But you’re gonna have to get someone down to the jail to get him out. He’s not the kind of guy that’ll get along there, and hey—what it’ll take is ‘a citizen of known melant’i, moral character, and resources.’ I sure don’t qualify for the resources part, the melant’i I ain’t got and I’m not sure if I qualify for the character part….”

  Cyra wasn’t too sure about the character part either, though the fact that the girl was here with so many of Bell’s belongings argued for her. Arrayed on the step was a ship bag with “Belansium” printed on a tag, four or five studies—paintings and sketches of a woman, who Cyra realized must be herself by the detail of the face—nude in different positions, some small odds and ends in boxes, a small paint kit, a picnic box….

  “Tell me again,” Cyra demanded. “After we got these inside. From the beginning. I’ll make tea.”

  *

  DEBBIE RUSHED OFF while the tea was heating and returned with pastries, and a damp towel, which she was using on the dust and grime on her bare arms.

  “I was having company over and wasn’t much paying attention to other stuff when I heard one of the transports go over. Things started trembling and—well, wasn’t at the stage I thought, then the next thing I know there was a big cherunk kind of noise and the front wall just fell out into the street. The whole place got shaky and we all got out. Bell come dashing out from his room carrying something big and square and rushing down the steps with it whiles bricks and roof-stuff falling all around.

  “We was outside standing and staring—most everyone out by then, when the whole building kind of slanted over backwards and leaned into the alley. My guy, he’s pretty smart, he’d grabbed a bottle of wine on the way out, and we all had a sip, and when it looked like there wasn’t any more up to fall down we went in to see what we could save and to make sure no one was inside—and a bunch of snortheads showed up. One grabbed one of them sketches of you and yelled for some of the others—

  “That Bell picked up part of a drainpipe and started hitting and bashing at them guys, and then my guy hit one of ‘em with the empty bottle, and then the proctors showed up and Bell wasn’t letting no one near his stuff. Proctor kind of waved something in his direction and Bell did this neat little dance step and brought his hand out and lifted the proctor right off his feet. Right quick they was all on him…and I had to explain— see it was my Ma’s building, and all— but they still got Bell for drunk-and-disorderly, striking a proctor, and I don’t know what else. And I can’t speak for him!”

  “Neither can I,” Cyra said. admitted, staring down into her tea and trying not to think of Bell at the hottest part of his cycle, locked away from his paints and pens. “Neither can I.”

  *

  “YOU HAVE ARRIVED,” the receptionist told Cyra, “at a bad time. I have no one to spare to listen to your story, as interesting as it must be. The Scouts are not in the habit of interfering with the proctors on matters of Low Port drunk-and-disorderly …”

  Cyra glared. “He was not drunk—not at this time in the cycle. Disorderly—he did strike a proctor, but—” she stopped, suddenly struck by a thought, and came near to the counter again.

  “Have you a Scout named Jon?” she asked.

  “Only several,” a female voice said from close behind her. Cyra spun, face heating. The Scout tipped her head, eyes bright and manic, as the eyes of Scout’s so often were. “Would you wish us to know that it is a Scout named Jon whom the proctors discovered to be drunk and disorderly? I don’t find that impossible. Why, I myself have been drunk and disorderly in Low Port. It is excellent practice for the dining situations found on several of the outworlds.”

  “Captain sig’Radia…” the receptionist began, but the Scout waved a hand.

  “Peace. Someone has arrived with time to spare for a story about a drunk and disorderly in Low Port.” She cocked a whimsical eyebrow in Cyra’s direction, looking her full in the face, as if the disfiguring scars were invisible, or non-existent. “The acoustics of this hallway are quite amazing, but allow me to be certain—I did hear you sa
y ‘struck a proctor’?”

  Cyra admitted it dejectedly. “But it is not the Scout Jon who did this,” she continued, feeling an utter fool. “I had merely thought, since my friend—Bell—was known to the Scout…”

  “Ah. And something more of your friend—Bell—if you please? For I do not believe, despite our abundance of Jons, that we have any Scouts named Bell.”

  Cyra bit her lip. “He is a Terran—an artist. Last night, the apartment house he lived in fell down, and—”

  “Now I have the fellow!” Captain sig’Radia cried, and grinned with every appearance of delight. “What we heard on the Port is that he knocked down a prepared, on-duty proctor, barehanded. Quite an accomplishment, though I don’t expect the proctors think so. No sense of humor, proctors.”

  “It must be unpleasant,” Cyra murmured, “after all, to be knocked down.”

  “Oh, wonderfully unpleasant,” the Scout agreed happily. “Especially with the rest of your team looking on.”

  “Yes,” Cyra bit her lip, wondering how possibly to explain the cycles, and the tragedy of Bell being without his paints now. “If you please, Bell—it is very bad…” she stammered to a halt.

  “Complicated, eh?” the Scout said sympathetically. “Come, let us be private.”

  She took Cyra’s arm as if they were long friends, and escorted her out of the main room and down a hall.

  “Ah, here we are,” the Scout said, and put her palm against a door, which opened willingly, utterly silent.

  The lights came up as they walked down the room to the table and chairs. Cyra looked about, marveling at the size of the chamber, her eye caught and held by a projection on the front wall—a planetscape, it was, showing a sun and a great-ringed planet in the distance and a close up portion of bluish-green atmosphere—

  Cyra gasped, recognition going through her like a bolt, though she had never seen this painting, but the composition, the eloquence the work—it could only be—

  “That is Djymbolay, is it not?” She asked the Scout captain, her voice shaking.

  The woman looked at her in open wonder. “It is, indeed. How did you know?”

  “My friend Bell painted the original of that.” She used her chin to point.

  The captain looked, face very serious now. “I see. You will then be comforted to know that the original is safe in the World Room.” She looked back to Cyra, her smile crooked.

  “And your friend Bell is by extrapolations no more nor no less than Jon dea’Cort’s glorious madman. Allow me to see if the Scout is within our reach.”

  *

  SUMMONED, JON DEA’CORT arrived quickly and heard the tale out with a grin almost as wide as Bell’s could be, when he stood at the height of his powers. When all was said, he looked to Cyra, and inclined his head.

  “Your Bell, he is at what stage in his continuing journey?”

  She blinked against the rise of unexpected tears and made herself meet his eyes squarely. “He is painting. Please—”

  He held up a hand. “Yes. You were right to come to us.” He looked to Captain sig’Radia, who lifted an eyebrow.

  “A change of custody, I think,” he said to her. “Certainly, they will insist that he be heard, and fined, but he must be got out of the holding tank at once and allowed to paint before drunk-and-disorderly becomes cold murder.”

  Cyra sat up, horrified. “Bell would not—” A bright glance stopped her.

  “Would he not? Perhaps you are correct. But let us not put him to the test, eh?” He grinned suddenly, Scout-manic. “Besides, I want to see what magic flows from his brush this time.”

  *

  THEY GAVE HER A room, and a meal, and promised to fetch her, when Bell was arrived. She ate and laid down on the bed, meaning to close her eyes for a moment only…

  “Cyra?” The voice was quiet, but unfamiliar. “It is I, Jon dea’Cort. Your Bell is safe.”

  She sat up, blinking, and found the Scout seated on the edge of her bed, face serious.

  “Is he well?” she demanded. “Is he—”

  He held up a hand. “Would you see him? He is painting.”

  “Yes!”

  “Come then,” he said, and he led her out and down the hall to a lift, then down, down, down, perhaps to the very core of the planet, before the doors opened, and there was another hall, which they walked until it intersected another. They turned right. Jon dea’Cort put his hand against a door, which slid, silently, open, and they stepped into a large and well-lit studio.

  Bell at the farther end of the room, his easel in the best light and he was working with that focused, feverish look on his face that she had come to know well—and to treasure.

  The Scout touched her hand, and tipped his head toward the door. Cyra followed him out.

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling conflicting desires to sing and weep. “He will crash—sometime. Often, he knows when, but in a strange place, with this interruption—I do not know. Someone—someone should pay attention to him.”

  “Surely,” the Scout said amiably. “And that someone ought to be yourself, if you are able?”

  She hesitated for a moment, thinking of the shop in Low Port, and then inclined her head. “I am able.”

  *

  “CYRA?” SHE LOOKED UP from her work, smiling, and found Bell gazing seriously down at her.

  Having gained her attention, he went to a knee, and raised his hand to her face. She nestled her cheek into the caress.

  “Are you sorry, Cyra? To leave your home, to be rootless, companioned to inconvenient Bell, and in the sphere of Scouts…”

  She laughed and turned her face, brushing her lips against his palm, and straightening.

  “What is this? You will be painting tomorrow, my friend; do not try to tease me into believing that you are on the down-cycle!”

  He smiled at that, and touched a fingertip to her nose before dropping his hand to his knee. “You know me too well. But, truly, Cyra…”

  She put the pliers down and reached out, placing her hands on his shoulders and gazing seriously into his eyes.

  “I am not sorry, Bell. Did you not say that you would take me away? You have done so, and I am not sorry at all.”

  He had kept the other part of that pillow-sworn vow, as well, and the portrait of herself that he had completed in Scout Headquarters remained there, on display in the reception area, with other works of art from many worlds.

  “I have the original,” he had said to Jon dea’Cort. “Take you the copy, and let us be in Balance.”

  And so it had been done, and now they were—attached to Scouts, spending time on this research station, or that surveillance ship, while Bell painted, and sketched, and fed his art. Cyra fed her own art, and her jewelry was sought after, when they came to a world where they might sell, or trade.

  “We do well,” she said, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “I am pleased, Bell.”

  He laughed gently and leaned forward, sliding his arms around her and bringing her on to his knee.

  “You’re pleased, are you?” he murmured against her hair. “But could you not be—just a little—more pleased?”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms closely around his neck, rubbing her cheek against the softness of his beard.

  “Why, yes,” she said, teasing him. “I might be—just a little—more pleased.”

  He laughed, and rose, bearing her with him, across their cabin to the bed.

  —Standard Year 1293

  About the Authors

  SHARON LEE AND STEVE MILLER live in the rolling hills of central Maine, where they repaired from Maryland—with cats, books, music, and computers—after selling the first three Liaden Universe® novels in the late 1980s.

  Before moving to Maine, Steve and Sharon were active in the Baltimore science fiction community for years as fans, short story writers, editors, bookstore owners and art agents. In the mid seventies Clarion West (class of ‘73) graduate Steve was the founding Curator of the UMBC Science Fict
ion Research Collection as well as the Director of Information for the burgeoning Baltimore Science Fiction Society. A well known traveling fan, Steve attended well over 100 conventions during this period.

  Since moving they’ve continued to write in the Liaden Universe® and six of the novels—Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, and Plan B are now in print, with I Dare set to follow in February 2002, Balance of Trade due in 2003, and two additional Liaden novels coming in the years after that.

  The current novels are available individually in electronic format from Embiid as well as in Meisha Merlin trade paper editions; the omnibus Partners in Necessity—containing the first three novels—is also out in hardcover from the Science Fiction Book Club and soon there will be mass market editions of all the novels from Ace.

  Along the way, Sharon and Steve were (and are) fortunate in having very supportive readers. In 1995 those readers requested—via an internet mailing list—something Liaden to tide them over. Steve’s experience in chapbook publishing came to the fore and thus he began SRM Publisher. Two Tales of Korval was SRM’s first book and it’s first print run was expected to be 60—but ended up at 200. Those rapidly sold out, as well, and now Two Tales is the SRM Publishing stable’s best seller, with over 3500 copies in print.

  As readers continued to ask for more short works, SRM brought out other chapbooks, including a reissue of pre-Liaden fantasy The Naming of Kinzel. Eventually Absolute Magnitude magazine got into the act with Liaden Universe® short stories. Editor Warren Lapine accepted the novelette “Balance of Trade” for issue 11 of Absolute Magnitude, snapped up “A Choice of Weapons” for issue number 12 and then took the very popular novella “Changeling” for issue 14. These stories were collected into the fifth and sixth Liaden Universe® chapbooks from SRM. “Changeling” has proved very popular and is also available as an Embiid electronic book.

  After a stint as Web Libriarian at a start-up dot.com SRM Publisher grew to be Steve’s “day job”—in part because SRM Publisher took over the original Sharon Lee and Steve Miller “Authors of the Liaden Universe” website, expanding it to include an online catalog page as well as a list of congruent authors.