by Sharon Lee
She nodded, her hands assuring him, is fine check is clear check will comply check and she was able to smile without having to wipe tears from the corner of her mouth.
There was a loud buzz. Win Ton said the word she figured for his version of "Chaos!" and snatched a ship comm from his pocket. A glance at the screen and he was on his feet.
"Theo, I must run! A gift for you, my friend, use it wisely! Also—advice: never buy a bowli ball on a cruise ship!"
His hand came out of his jacket again and he placed a package wrapped in red spangled paper in her hands, his fingers lingering on hers a moment.
Then he was gone.
Cho settled into her chair while Theo unwrapped the package, silently calling for a fresh pot of tea. She warmed both cups while Theo read the warning on the package, indicating with a nod that the third cup could be taken away.
"This clearly states," Theo said, "that this is for sale to pilots only!"
"Ah," said Cho, waving a fluid hand toward the open box. "Conditions are met, are they not? The apprentice is a pilot of some skill. I confess that I overhead his parting advice to you and I must allow it to be wisdom. To have purchased such a thing at the Crew's Store . . . Well. Necessity."
Theo unfolded the enclosed rule book. "The stochastic reverberation tuned-molecule core makes long range accuracy problematical. Never throw, kick, or launch your stochastic reflection device in the direction of a person or fragile object . . ."
She looked up at Captain Cho, who was patiently sipping her tea.
"Never throw it at a person? But . . ."
"Pilots, as you will likely come to see, have their own small jokes."
"Never use this equipment in a closed environment. Avoid handling with damp hands or in uncertain footing . . ."
She sighed, felt her fingers moving and thought to pay attention to what they were saying: never never never careful danger pilot use only not a toy not for competition avoid deep knife cuts . . .
She laughed slightly, and looked up.
"Thank you, Captain Cho."
The Liaden woman smiled slightly. "You are welcome, Theo Waitley. Now, I mark that time passes and that we shall soon be under docking rule. It happens that I, too, have something to place into your hand."
She reached into a slip pocket on her belt, and extended her hand as Win Ton had, a card held between the first and second finger.
Theo took it, her fingers delighting in the smooth feel of the creamy paper.
"More properly, that is for the pilot who trained you. If you will hand deliver this to that pilot . . . I would be appreciative."
Theo looked down at the card curiously. The front bore a graphic of a ship and a planet, with what she guessed were Liaden words written beneath. On the back, in neatly lettered Terran was: Captain Cho sig'Radia, Piloting Liaison.
That was followed by a series of letters and numbers, much like Win Ton's Pilots Guild address.
"My address with the Scouts is there, as well as—but the pilot will know."
Theo looked up, confusion and dismay threatening to invite the silly tears again.
"But you're the pilot who trained me," she protested. "Or—Win Ton or Phobai—Cordrey! I don't know any other pilots!"
"Ah," Cho said, sounding infuriatingly like Father. "Perhaps it will come to you. In the meanwhile . . ." She inclined her head. "It is time that we part, my student. Go well, dance joyously, and number your friends with care."
Thirty-Two
Melchiza
City of Treasures
They were met in the Egress Lounge by their officially assigned Melchizan Chaperon. According to the handouts, they weren't supposed to stir outside their hotel room or other quarters without their Chaperon. Visitors caught roaming around on their own faced the usual litany of Melchizan penalties: fine, imprisonment, or immediate expulsion from the planet.
Their particular Chaperon was tall and thin with droopy yellow mustaches that made his long face look even longer. He had pale brown eyes and big knobby hands in which he held a data screen and a sheaf of brightly colored cards.
"Greeting! Greeting, sir, professor, professora, mamzelle! I am Gidis Arkov, your assigned guide and protector. All questions are for me; I stand between you and all harm. I am the keeper of the schedule, I carry copies of your bona fides next to my heart—" He lifted the data screen—"Consider that I am your elder brother; any problem or concern you may have during your time on Melchiza, bring to me and I will make all smooth for you.
"Now!" he continued briskly, "we have the bus just here, with the driver waiting. Before we board, however, we must be insuring that your identification is in order." He slipped the data screen into the side pocket of his bright orange jacket, which was not, Theo thought critically, next to his heart, unless biology on Melchiza was very strange.
He glanced down at the cards in his hand, and looked up, scanning their faces earnestly. "Which is Farancy Able?"
Professor Able stood forward. "I am, Chaperon Arkov."
He smiled, his mustaches lifting. "Please, I am your elder brother, eh? Gidis is what you may call me. Now, this." He extended the purple card to her. "This is very important. You must at all times have it visible. Attach it to your coat and surrender it to no one, excepting anyone of Security." He looked 'round at all of them.
"You have read that Security will wear blue. In general and most usually, this is so. Sadly, there are rogues, not so many in the City of Treasures as elsewhere, but! Please be observant. If it seems to you that the person wearing blue is not behaving as a security person ought to do, you may politely ask to see identification. A legitimate security person will not take this amiss. A rogue will bluster and seek to bully. If this should happen, that a rogue seeks to separate you from your identification—do not acquiesce. Refuse, become loud and create a commotion. The rogue will—often—run. If they do not run fast enough, Security, having heard your commotion, will catch the impostor." Gidis smiled. "It is a very bad thing to pretend to be Security on Melchiza.
"So, Farancy Able, please affix this firmly to your coat so that all may see it. Know where it is at all times. Sleep with it, eh?" He laughed, and looked down at the next card.
"Vaughn Crowley."
Professor Crowley stood forward and took another purple card, subjecting it to a moment of study before pressing it against the breast of his jacket.
"Yes, excellent." Gidis smiled and looked down to the next.
"Orkan Hafley." The chair silently held out her hand, and slapped the identification card against her dull green sweater, where it adhered somewhat crookedly.
Gidis lifted the last purple card with a smile and held it out to Kamele with a little bow. "Kamele Waitley, yes? Please, do as your companions before you."
The next card was white. Gidis bowed again, without the smile. "Sir," he said.
Clyburn nodded and pressed the card against his elaborately fringed jacket.
The last card was pink.
"Mamzelle," Gidis said, handing it to Theo. "You will be vigilant, eh? The rule for you, it changes, only a little. The people who have the right to ask for your card are Security and your teacher. Your teacher only, yes? If another teacher wishes to peruse your information, he must apply to your teacher, who will, if he considers the request reasonable, ask you to surrender the card to him. If you are confused about this rule, you will please ask your teacher. All of this is plain and clear?"
Does he think I'm a littlie? Theo wondered grumpily, but she remembered that the rule-book listed pretty serious penalties for arguing with a Chaperon, and while immediately being deprived of the Chaperon's services wouldn't matter to her, since she was going to be locked up at boarding school, it would matter a lot to Kamele and the research team.
"Everything's clear," she said to Gidis, and pressed the pink tag against the shoulder of her red jacket.
"Excellent. Now! The schedule for the rest of this day. First, we board the bus and transport the mamzelle
to school. There will at the school be a short moment for mamzelle's mother to speak with the teacher. The bus then takes us to the hotel. Dinner has been ordered in, as the scholars will wish to rest in their apartment. The sir has of course, been cleared for visiting." He nodded, then spun on a heel. "Follow me, please!"
Theo moved at once, Kamele right with her, both of them following Gidis down the room toward the doors. The others hesitated for a long moment, as if they thought there'd been a mistake, then hurried to catch up, their feet noisy against the 'crete floor.
"Visiting?" Theo heard Professor Able say. "Oh, of course! Your mother, is it not, who is placed high in Admin?"
"Precisely!" Chair Hafley took the question to herself. "As it happens, Clyburn's mother and sister live on Melchiza. Of course he must visit them! I insisted upon it."
"Certainly, one must pay one's respects to one's mother," Professor Crowley said, but in the tone of voice Theo noticed he used when he was saying something else instead.
"Oh, no doubt," Professor Able agreed. "I simply hadn't known that Clyburn was native to Melchiza."
Chair Hafley sniffed. "Why do you think I insisted that he accompany us?" she demanded. "A local guide will be invaluable to us!"
Except, Theo thought, Clyburn was going to visit his mother and the team had an assigned Chaperon, so how was he going to be any help? She looked at Kamele, who was biting her bottom lip, apparently listening just as hard as Theo was to the conversation to the rear.
"How long will the research take?" Theo asked.
Kamele glanced at her, blue eyes dancing. Her voice, however, was grave. "Professor Crowley estimated anywhere between four and seven local days, depending on the accessibility of the records, and how many hours per day we're allowed inside the Treasure House archives."
"So, if Clyburn is going to go visit—"
"Yes," Kamele murmured, cutting her off. "I think it's safe to conclude that Chair Hafley brought Clyburn so that he might have the treat of visiting his mother." She gave Theo a sideways glance. "It shows well of her, that she treats her onagrata with kindness," she added.
Theo sighed. She knew from Life Class that a woman who was responsible for an onagrata should take pains to let him know that he was valued, and to give him those little gifts and treats that were so important to the male ego. It was just that Professor Hafley treated Clyburn like he was . . . learning challenged, which, despite the fact that she didn't like him, Theo was pretty sure he wasn't. In Theo's opinion, it took real observational skills to be as snarky as Clyburn.
Ahead of them, Gidis waved open the doors. Before them was a short, canopied walk, with a long, orange car pulled across the far end.
"The bus!" he called, moving to one side of the walk and making shooing motions with one hand to hurry them along.
Kamele and Theo walked on, Theo turning her head, attention caught by a flicker of what might have been sense . . .
Yes, there it was again, woven between the nonsense waving and posturing, a phrase she almost recognized, but it couldn't be all is in readiness.
Could it?
"Theo," Kamele called from the bus door, "do you want to sit in the front or the back?"
Theo turned as Clyburn detached himself from their group, mincing in his fancy boots, clearly heading for another vehicle at the far end of the drive.
"Where's he going?" she asked loudly. "He doesn't have a Chaperon!"
"Hist! Hist, mamzelle! The sir is not a visitor! He is a returning son of Melchiza. Such require no Guides."
"Really, Theo!" Chair Hafley added, as she stepped past on her way to their bus. "If you spent as much time minding your own business as you spend monitoring others, you'd be in Four Team One, instead of Three!"
"Theo?" Kamele called again.
Ears burning, Theo turned back toward the bus.
* * *
"Why are you telling me these bizarre things?" Monit Appletorn kept his face averted, most of his attention seemingly centered on the screen of his mumu.
Jen Sar Kiladi tipped his head to one side, and considered the other man's profile. Strong bones, and a stubborn chin, dark hair beginning to recede from a high forehead. There was a tightness in the tiny muscles around the eyes that perhaps spoke of more interest in bizarre topics than he wished to have seen.
He had not been offered a seat, which was only Balance, as he had arrived unannounced and all but forced himself into Appletorn's office. If he had called ahead and made more seemly arrangements to meet, perhaps the good scholar might have found time to move a pile of hard copy from one of the overburdened chairs. One did wonder, however, where his students sat when they came to solicit the scholar's advice.
Jen Sar flexed his fingers where they were folded atop his cane, and shifted his weight slightly. Appletorn reluctantly turned his face until it could be said that he was giving his guest due attention.
"I am telling you these things," Jen Sar said, keeping his voice gentle, "because you live in one of the compromised apartments. In theory, you have access to this rogue AI. Should this situation be discovered, your scholarship, your conclusions, and your standing as a Scholar Expert all are cast into doubt." He bowed slightly, as if in sympathy. "The work of a lifetime, tarnished by mere proximity."
"I think you overstate the case," Appletorn said, doubtless meaning to sound assured. "My work is well-known; certainly the earliest monographs predate the arrival of this . . . rogue AI, as you care to style it."
"Is that so? I have myself no firm date for the onset of the infection." Jen Sar murmured. Appletorn's face paled. "But, no! Doubtless you are correct. You have not always lived in that apartment; your earliest work would, in fact, escape doubt . . . as long as your former residence was free of the old wire."
The other man closed his eyes. When, at the count of twelve there was no further response forthcoming, Jen Sar set the next hook.
"Come, we both know that these things can be managed. The trick is to be in control of the information and its revelation, rather than allowing it to be discovered impromptu and subjected to dismaying interpretations by persons ignorant of the actual facts."
"I have never used this 'old wire,' " Appletorn said, which was . . . perhaps . . . true. "This rogue AI is unknown to me. I am, therefore, not in its logs, nor listed among its users."
"Ah. That, you see, is the genius of the program. Asked, it helpfully provided a map of those places to which it potentially has access. A second request, this to our own Concierge, produced the names of those currently residing in the compromised apartments." He smiled, sympathetically. "It is so difficult to prove a negative."
Another lengthy silence was the reward of sympathy, and at last a sigh.
"You say that you have the means to contain this malignancy and shut it down at the source."
Jen Sar tsk'd lightly. "I say that I have a pointer to a person. In all truth, this is likeliest to be an intermediate contact. As to finishing quietly—perhaps not. I do not despair of quickly, however, granted able and advertent assistance. And surely we shall emerge both politically stronger for our defense of Delgadan scholarship, and more able to control the flow of information to the ignorant."
Monit Appletorn was not a fool; the tension in his face and shoulders was ample evidence that he understood the stakes. It remained only to see if he was ruled by fear, or by melant'i.
"I'll do it," Appletorn said, and nodded toward the nearest chair. "Pitch that stuff on the floor and tell me what you plan."
* * *
"Waitley?" a tall stout woman with a pink band around her left bicep shouted from the bottom of the ramp.
"Yes, ma'am." Theo went carefully down the ramp, pulling her case behind her.
"I'm Instructor Tathery. You're on my roster. Class is over for the day and you're a little late for supper. I'll show you to your room; the kitchen's already been told to send up a tray when you arrive." She looked over Theo's head.
"You'll be Professor Waitley?"
she asked.
"Theo's mother," Kamele agreed coming off the end of the ramp to stand next to Theo. She held her hand out. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Instructor Tathery."
The bigger woman blinked, then took the offered hand, Kamele's fingers vanishing inside the large grasp. "A pleasure, Professor," she said gruffly.
"I don't mind talking while we walk," Kamele said, after her hand was returned and the other woman hadn't said anything else.
"Yes, well . . ." Instructor Tathery looked up the ramp, to where Gidis stood in the doorway of the bus.
"I'm not a Government Chaperon," the big woman finally produced. Kamele looked puzzled, but Theo suddenly understood.
"You can't go anywhere on Melchiza without a Chaperon," she said. "And if Gidis comes with us, then the rest of the team will be without a Chaperon."
Kamele sighed and shook her head. "I am not acclimated as yet," she said ruefully, and looked to the instructor. "I apologize for having placed you in an uncomfortable position and thank you for your patience. What I wish to say can certainly be said here, though I would have liked to see Theo's room and the learning areas."
"It is suggested, Professor Waitley," Gidis said from his position on the high ground, "that you speak quickly. The schedule—we must not fall behind."
"Maybe on your way back, ma'am," Instructor Tathery said, "you and the rest of your party would like a tour of the facilities."
"That would be very pleasant," Kamele said, keeping her eyes on the instructor's face; not even acknowledging Gidis by a glance. "I only wanted to explain—because I know custom varies from world to world—that, according to the custom of our homeworld, Delgado, Theo is yet a minor child, under the care of her mother. We wish to preserve our customs as nearly as possible while visiting Melchiza." She paused, but Instructor Tathery didn't say anything.