by Sharon Lee
“Thank you,” Pat Rin said, moving effortlessly into Terran.
He shrugged his coat off and handed it to Gavit, who received it with the small, crisp bow that her staff had settled upon as the generally correct mode, and murmured, “Yes, ma’am, Boss. Comin’ right up.”
He left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
“Come and sit, cousin,” Nova said, dropping back into the Low Tongue. Theirs was a multi-lingual House, as befit a family of traders and spacefarers, and Nova spoke Terran well. Still, it was…a pleasure to speak Liaden, and especially to speak familiarly, to kin.
Obedient, Pat Rin sat in the chair next to her desk, sighing, even as he nodded his head toward the radiant wall unit, which was glowing gently orange.
“It is, according to my household, very nearly spring.”
“I have received similar information,” Nova replied. “I take leave to doubt it.”
“Certainly, the hope of spring must be seductive,” Pat Rin said. “However, as one who has previously enjoyed the balmy pleasures of that season, I fear I must encourage you in doubt.”
“Perhaps we will become acclimated, in time,” Nova said.
“Perhaps we will,” Pat Rin replied politely. “Or perhaps Weather Tech Brunner will speedily finish his studies, and find an optimum orbit for the mirrors and weather satellites.”
Should Mr. Brunner finished his studies after breakfast, and launched the first satellite before dinner, it would be several years before Surebleak began appreciably to warm—Nova had seen the summary reports. And even then, Surebleak would never achieve Liad’s inoffensive perpetual springtime.
She had seen those reports, too.
There was, however, no sense dwelling on cold news. At least so long as there were radiant heaters.
“You were going to tell me,” she said to her cousin, “why you are about so early in the day. Surely now that you are lifemated, you have no need to keep wastrel’s hours.”
“Now that I am Boss of Bosses, I keep hours that would put a wastrel to the blush,” Pat Rin retorted. He shook his head. “No, as it happens, Mr. McFarland had wished to consult with Mr. Golden regarding an expansion of patrol coverage, and to gain his opinion of the child-on-the-street policy.”
Cheever McFarland was Pat Rin’s head of security, a tough, able man of wit and a certain rough charm. In her household, his counterpart was Michael Golden, whom Mr. McFarland had speedily taken as his adviser in matters of greater street security and implementation of new policy—what one might call “law.” Unlike Mr. McFarland, Michael Golden had grown up on Surebleak—indeed, on this very turf, which had come lately under the protection of Boss Conrad—and his insights were, as she had found for herself, invaluable.
“And of course,” she said, giving Pat Rin High Mode, “you are a slave to Mr. McFarland’s schedule.”
He smiled, which he did less easily than her brothers—well. Val Con of late stood within bowing range of solemn; one had the sense of his listening twice to every utterance, which was, she had persuaded herself, the delm’s weight. Pat Rin had been serious from a boy. It had been the first bond between them.
“Mr. McFarland of course rules me utterly,” he said now. “But, as it happened, there is a matter that I wished to bring to you. Regarding—”
The quick sound of knuckles against plastic interrupted him. A moment later, the door opened to admit Gavit, bearing a tray. He paused just inside the room to look at her, his head tipped slightly.
“On the conference table, thank you, Gavit,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am, Boss.” He disposed of the tray neatly, and turned again to address Pat Rin. “Beck says, Mr. Conrad, if you’d care to sit down to breakfast, there’s griddle cakes and hot apple toppin’.”
“Please tell Beck that I am honored,” Pat Rin said gravely. “However, I am wanted elsewhere very shortly, and while Mr. McFarland may stay, I—may not.”
Gavit nodded. “Heard Cheever tell Mike he was short-stoppin’. I’ll give Beck the news.”
“Thank you.” Pat Rin said.
Gavit bowed and left them, pulling the door to.
Nova rose and Pat Rin with her. She poured a single cup, which was proper, raised it for the sip—and paused when Pat Rin put a second cup forward to be filled.
She met serious brown eyes.
“I recall that it was you who counseled me to learn Surebleak custom and observe it stringently.”
“So I did. However, I find it unlikely that Beck would have invited me to stay for griddle cakes if she had poisoned the tea.”
“It does seem inefficient,” Nova agreed and filled his cup.
- - - - -
“You are aware,” Pat Rin said, after they had both returned to the desk and had a grateful sip of tea, “that Korval has taken up several persons in relation to what we now understand to have been a deliberate attempt on the life of the delmae.”
Eight persons that would be, Nova thought, placing her tea cup carefully amid her papers. Nine, if one counted the hapless Otts Clark, who hadn’t even tried to use the deadly weapon he had been given, but instead attempted to capture Val Con’s lifemate. Questioning had revealed Mr. Clark’s reluctance to kill—not the battle-honed mercenary soldier whom his politics informed him was creating a hostile economic environment for Surebleak natives—but the unborn heir.
“I know that Natesa and Anthora are collaborating on…questioning,” she said.
Pat Rin nodded. “That they are, and a tricksy business it is, holding to the Delm’s Word while attempting to extract information vital to the clan’s protection.”
The Delm’s Word. Nova sighed.
“Does it seem to you that Val Con is being rather tender of those who have proven themselves over and again to be Korval’s true enemy?”
Pat Rin glanced at her, dark brows drawn above velvet brown eyes.
“The delm is after larger game than those we have gathered into hand,” he pointed out.
“Oh, agreed! But the eight are not themselves blameless. They, as much as those they serve, wish Korval’s destruction—we have it from their own lips. Otts Clark—”
Otts Clark had no defenses against Anthora’s arts, which the eight agents of the so-called Department of the Interior had in abundance. He had willingly given the name of the man who had instructed him, and given him the toxin-tipped pin…
…and then wept in honest horror and sorrow when the Scout team came back to tell him that they had found the man…dead.
“Val Con,” Pat Rin murmured, interrupting these thoughts.
She glanced at him, questioning, and found him staring abstractedly into the depths of his tea cup.
“Val Con?” she prompted when it seemed that he was in danger of becoming lost in his thoughts.
He glanced up. “Your pardon, cousin. It is merely that I had heard from Shan that Val Con had been…subverted by this same Department of the Interior. The description of the damage done was quite horrific, and I without Healer’s eyes, to truly know what had been done.”
“I had heard the same,” Nova said quietly, “and yet he won free, while these others—”
“Val Con won free because he had resources,” Pat Rin interrupted. “So Shan theorizes—and I agree. Val Con had Miri at his back, he had his music, his brothers of the Clutch—and he was raised under Tree, whatever that does to any of us! These others—they have no such resources nor any kind of aid. And it may be…” He looked to her, earnest and, as she read it, not a little distressed. “It may be that Val Con is the only one who is fit to judge their condition and in what manner they must be contained.
“They admit of no clan, and in any case to return them to kin would seem a disastrous course. Certainly, they cannot advocate…rationally for themselves. Having fallen captive to their great enemy, Anthora reads that none expects the department they serve will seek to free them, and they find pride in being expendable. Each had a geas upon them, to die as quickly
as they might upon capture—”
“Which geas Anthora had been able to…circumvent,” Nova murmured.
“Indeed—and so we come to my tale.” Pat Rin drew a breath, and recruited himself with a deep draught of tea.
“Anthora and Natesa had devised a scheme which they believed would allow them to heed the Delm’s Word while being more productive of information. There was one among the eight who seemed to…revel less in her lack of worth. One, indeed, whom the conditioning seemed to push rather than…consume.
“Anthora said to Natesa that she saw a—let us call it a fault line. She believed that she might separate the conditioning from the conditioned, and thus unlock a rational mind from which Natesa might then gain answers.”
He looked down into his empty cup.
Nova drank what was left of her tea, and considered. That her sister Anthora could do precisely what was described, she had no doubt; Anthora was one of the three most powerful dramliz in the known galaxy. And once Anthora had produced the correct conditions, there was no doubt at all that Pat Rin’s lifemate, Juntavas Judge Natesa the Assasin, would be able to extract much of value to the clan.
All the while leaving the one under questioning intact and alive.
Which was the Delm’s Word.
She put her cup down and nodded. “So,” she prompted, “the attempt was made.”
He shivered slightly, though they were quite snug where they sat, by the heater’s benevolent orange glow.
“Indeed,” he said slowly. “The attempt was made. It was, one might say, a success. Natesa found herself speaking to a woman who was at first somewhat puzzled, and who grew more agitated as the questions proceeded. It was as if, Natesa told me, the personality had become detached from the deeds, and she was for a time able to describe those deeds as if she had observed some other person perform them.
“As the questions continued, however, the woman—Elid yos’Casin, she admitted no clan in either state. As the questions continued, she began to understand that she had performed the deeds she was describing, and she grew more and more disordered.
“Anthora sensed a crisis, and withdrew her influence, thinking that the previous personality balance would readjust itself…”
He stopped and swallowed.
“She killed herself?” Nova asked softly.
“She died, let us say,” Pat Rin answered. “Natesa…” Another swallow. “Natesa allows me to know that it was a bad death. As bad as any she has witnessed.”
Now, there was a statement that must give pause, coming as it did from one who had earned her gun-name.
“So now there are seven,” Nova said softly, “and Otts Clark.”
“Who must be confined for his own protection. The delm was not pleased—the less so, when Natesa provided coordinates, and a name, which Elid yos’Casin had offered. At the moment, all eight are remanded to the care of the Scouts, and there are Healers on watch at all hours, in the event that any of those remaining should seek to embrace their geas.”
“These are Korval’s enemy,” Nova said. “They will not stop until we—or they—are no more.”
“It would seem so. Though the Healers may eventually perfect a therapy…”
Surebleak would be the garden spot of the Daiellen Sector before the Healers could perfect such a therapy, Nova thought, and she shivered, there in the warm room.
“How do we dare this?” she asked suddenly. “Any of this? How do we dare to come out from Jelaza Kazone, and walk the streets. How do we dare to bring our children into danger?”
“Was our enemy more reticent, on the homeworld?” Pat Rin asked—and she started, having not realized that she had spoken aloud. “And now we are on guard, are we not? Our children are informed of their danger, and they are neither incompetent nor fools. Nor are we, I hope, fools. And as much as I may not guess its ultimate intent, I do not believe that the Tree is a fool. As for the rest—why, cousin, do you forget yourself?”
She looked up at the smile in his voice, saw the outstretched hand and placed hers into his.
“We dare because we must,” Pat Rin said.
“And who else,” Nova added, capping the line, “will dare for us?”
* * *
Directly after breakfast, before the first lessons of the day, that was when Syl Vor chose to dance. It wasn’t as much fun, without the others practicing, too, but there was the shadow-spar, after all, which was much the same as the unit at the Rock.
Syl Vor did his warm-ups, and took his stance, allowing the shadow-spar to pick one of the stored routines at random. Grandfather had said that they had to take care not to do the dances always in the same order, or to only dance preferred routines, lest they grow stale and slow and less able to protect themselves and others.
This morning the shadow-spar offered one of the speed dances. Syl Vor smiled and flowed into the pattern, quick-stepping, leaping, jabbing. At the end, he was breathing fast, his clothes sticky with sweat. The shadow-spar prompted him to cool down, and he turned from the unit to begin a series of stretches—
…and blinked at the elder gentleman leaning against the wall, his sharp-featured face bearing an expression of distant interest.
Syl Vor folded into a bow—honor to elder kin. “Grand-uncle Daav.”
“Nephew,” the gentleman said, in his deep voice. “Pray continue.”
Continue. Syl Vor took a breath, centered himself and began his cool-down set.
Grand-uncle Daav was Grand-aunt Kareen’s brother, Uncle Val Con’s father, who had been absent from clan and kin and Tree for all of Syl Vor’s lifetime—and more. He had been, until only recently, the stuff of stories.
Howeverso, he had been in-House when Syl Vor and Padi and Quin arrived from the Rock, and had immediately made himself known to them. Grand-aunt would say that had been improper—that junior ought to go to elder—but in truth they were all three relieved to have the duty taken from them. Nor did Grand-uncle Daav stop upon an introduction. He had several times joined them for their mid-morning tea and cookies, and on two occasions had asked Syl Vor to walk the inner garden with him. This, he had found it pleasantly instructive, Grand-Uncle Daav naming out the names of the flowers, and speaking of the days when the garden had been his to keep.
Syl Vor was of the tentative opinion that he might quite like Grand-uncle Daav, when he came to know him better. Though that might take some time, since Grand-uncle, with the rest of the elders of the House, was so very busy with the clan’s business.
Stretches done, Syl Vor turned, half expecting to find that he was once again alone in the practice room.
But, no—there stood Grand-uncle yet, tall and lean, his dark hair stitched with grey, his black eyes even sharper than Grand-aunt Kareen’s.
“May I serve you, Grand-uncle?”
“Now, there’s a gentle offer. But, no, child, in this instance I believe it is I who may serve you.”
Had he botched his routine? Syl Vor wondered. The shadow-spar was supposed to stop the pattern and correct him if he—
“Peace, Syl Vor—you dance admirably. It is only—” Grand-uncle Daav straightened and came forward, silent as Uncle Val Con—but there. Uncle Val Con was a Scout, and so, too, had his father been. And Scouts never made any sound that they did not intend to make.
“It is only…” Grand-uncle repeated, touching the shadow-spar’s screen and scrolling through the routine Syl Vor had just danced. “Yes. These are all avoids and kills—no feints, no bridge-work, no—” He glanced over his shoulder, with a swift, sharp smile. “You will forgive an old man his bias—no finesse.”
“Quin had said the same,” Syl Vor admitted. “He and Padi were forward of me, and had learnt how to dance properly. But Grandfather and Grand-aunt said that, if it came—if our enemies found us, and it was come down to myself between the twins and harm, I had best know my kills, because to run away, carrying two, even with a floater…”
“You would be conspicuous, and the babes would
slow you.” Grand-uncle Daav nodded gravely, which Grand-aunt would scold him for, were she present. “Your elders were wise in their choice; I honor them—and you. However, the bridgework adds an elegance, and sometimes dancing a feint may reveal another approach to survival. I would suggest, now that you are under Tree, in-House, and with numerous kin between yourself and the enemies of the clan, that a study of the dance entire may serve you well.”
Syl Vor chewed his lip, remembering Padi and Quin practicing together, and owned that Grand-uncle had a point.
“If you wish, I will program the shadow-spar so that it will guide you in the complete dance.”
“Yes,” Syl Vor said, startled by the loudness of his voice, so that for an instant he forgot to also say, “if you please, Grand-uncle.”
“It will be my very great pleasure. And now, my child, I fear that you are late for your tutor. Go, quickly, and say that I detained you.”
“Yes!” Syl Vor said again. Hastily, he bowed, received Grand-uncle’s nod in return—and ran.
Chapter Six
“Good dreaming to you, luthia,” Kezzi said politely.
She bent and put the limin branch with its white flowers and shiny green leaves on the edge of the rug.
“Good dreaming to you, young sister. Please pour tea for us.”
This, Kezzi hurried to do, filling two mugs, and setting the kettle back in its place by the hearth.
She gave Silain her mug, and knelt at the corner of the rug with her own mug in hand, Malda lying quiet and good at her side.
“Tell me,” the luthia said, after she had her first sip and sighed in satisfaction; “did you dreamed the dreams I sent to you?”
“Yes, luthia,” Kezzi said. In fact, she had twice-dreamed, which Vylet had doubted would do either harm or good.
“Like asking a flutterbee to dream a rock,” that had been Vylet’s wisdom.
Silain drank more tea, and Kezzi did.
“How sweet the limin smells,” the luthia said.
Sweet it was—sweeter than when she had taken the branch. Kezzi glanced at it, lying on the rug at Silain’s knee. The blossoms had opened wider, maybe in appreciation of the hearth’s warmth.