Liaden Unibus 01

by Sharon Lee

  "When it turned out that we didn't need anything all that esoteric, really, the research librarian was pleased to hand me over to the so-called Implementation Office and they had me walking around in one of these things inside a day. I brought a dozen dozen back for testing and barely a relumma after I had posted off my thank-you note, Headquarters sent me off on a secret mission—to pick up a shipload of these things, complete with dispenser canisters."

  "Secret mission?" Shadia snorted. "They didn't want other Scouts to know you were getting all the plush flights?"

  Clonak chuckled briefly at his work.

  "Actually, it was far more sinister than that. There's always a faction in the Council of Clans that wants to shut funding for the Scouts off, or reduce it. Some of them don't want us doing anything that might benefit Terrans, or they want us to charge for our work, or be turned into pet courier pilots for the High Houses. The idea that we might somehow be in debt to a Terran foundation had to be kept super mum."

  Shadia heard the crinkle of the Momson Cloak about her as she shook her head Terran-style and then flipped the hand signal roughly translating as "Stupidly assessing the situation, them, as dogs might."

  One-handed Clonak replied with "Affirm that twice."

  Before Shadia could turn back to her work Clonak stretched himself, permitting his legs to float higher than his head, and held up a series of electronic modules linked by tiny flat cables. At the end of the cables were several tiny power units.

  "Shadia, what you see here is the work of a genius,"

  "Of course," she said politely.

  Clonak ignored her. "It's too bad that I nearly destroyed it getting it out of the suit. I can see several more modifications I'll need to make, and then a box-lot of paperwork once we are joyfully returned to Headquarters . . . ."

  Shadia sighed. "What is it?"

  "A working transceiver set, of course! What else could it be? Now all we need to do is decide what we might safely say, on what frequency, and how often, for the right people to hear and fetch us away from this lovely idyll of shared pleasure." He moved a shoulder and his feet sank deckward. "I believe we will need your location report by the end of the shift, and since I'm essentailly done with this I'm available to act as your clerk."

  * * *

  RIDE THE LUCK broke into normal space and reported that all was well. Three breaths after, the position report center screen was replaced by a tile of alarms and warnings as the meteor shields went up a notch and the Scout's private hailing frequency was crowded by messages and fragments:

  " . . .ard Jumped out before I could cross-hair him; he definitely took out dea'Ladd!"

  " . . .was destroyed. Have adequate munitions to continue search pattern . . ."

  Daav's hands touched the switches which armed Ride The Luck, brought the scans online . . .

  " . . .have returned fire and am hit. Breath's duty—notify my clan of our enemy—I have three hours of air, heavy pursuit and no Jump left. Tell Grenada I forgive the counterchance debts. Notify my clan of Balance due these . . ."

  Scans showed debris in orbits that should have been clean, and warnaways at Nev'Lorn itself.

  Into a battle had come Ride the Luck, Tree-and Dragon broadcasting on all ID ports. No way to tell immediately how old some of the incoming messages might be—

  Daav thumbed a switch. "Daav yos'Phelium, Scout Reserve Captain, co-pilot of packet boat Ride the Luck, requesting berthing information or assignment. Repeat . . ."

  Before he was finished the second iteration he heard a cry of "Korval!" over the open line, and, fainter, "The Caylon's ship!"

  The chatter built and by then Ride the Luck had cataloged a dozen objects of note, including two closing tangentially.

  On commercial frequency—responding to the ID no doubt—came:

  "Freighter Luck you are to stand by for boarding by the Department of the Interior; you are under our weapons! Repeat—"

  On the Scout frequency: "Luck, Courier 12 here, I have you on my scans. I'm at breath's duty, pilot! I have one salvo left before I'm gone. Get away and tell Clan Kia the name of their enemy . . ."

  Kia was a Korval trading partner.

  Ride the Luck's ranging computer showed the two potential targets and attendant radio frequencies; Daav touched the guidestick and clicked the red circle over one of them. The circle faded to yellow.

  Still nothing from Nev'Lorn base.

  "Give me my commission, dammit! Are you asleep!" Daav's finger danced over the board: now he had the ship that had broadcast the duty message identified, and the one that had ordered him to stand by for boarding.

  Again the commercial frequency—"Freighter Luck, you are under arrest by the Department of The Interior. You are to agree to boarding or we will open fire."

  As if to punctuate their demand, the Department's ship fired a beam at Courier 12, raking the little vessel from stem to stern. And, finally:

  "Ride the Luck, this is Nev'Lorn headquarters. Captain yos'Phelium, you are on roster for berth 56A. You are authorized to aid and assist in transit . . ."

  "I have conflicting orders" Daav spoke into the mike, both channels open.

  The circle on the ranging computer showed orange now.

  "This system is under direct supervision of the Department of the Interior," came back the message rather quickly—they were closing fast. "Nev'Lorn Headquarters has been disbanded and is outlawed. Your decision or we fire, pilot!"

  Nev'Lorn, five light seconds more distant, sent again; "Captain you have a berth waiting . . ."

  "Department, " Daav said quietly into the mike, "I am taking your orders under advisement. You have the range on me, I'm afraid."

  The image of Courier 12 seemed to blossom then, as the pilot launched his remaining missiles at the oncoming Department ship. Eight or ten scattered, began maneuvering.

  The target circle went dull red.

  "Department, please advise best course?" Daav demanded.

  That ship, busily lashing out with particle beams at the oncoming missiles, did not reply. The static of those blasts would have torn the transmission out the ether in any case.

  The target circle grew a flashing green ring around a bright red center.

  With a sigh, Scout Captain Daav yos'Phelium clutched the guide-stick and punched the fire button. And again. And again. And again and again until Ride the Luck complained about overload and the expanding gases were far too thin to contain survivors.

  * * *

  EVEN CLONAK'S GENIAL optimism wasn't sufficient to approve of the ration situation by the time end of shift had come and gone six times, postponed by the simple fact that they still had been unable to achieve complete orbital elements.Between observations and calculations they'd managed to get the test circuit live to the in-system engines and they'd determined that at least a dozen thruster pairs were operable. They might actually be able to go somewhere—if only they knew where to point.

  Thanks to the cloaks the air supply was good for another 30 days. Food was another matter, since most of it was in storage lockers—if they still existed—in the sealed portion of the ship. They were stretching the interval between meals a little longer each time. At full rations they had food for six days; at their current rate they had fourteen.

  * * *

  "YOU HAPPENED BY at a fortunate time, Captain," Acting Scout Commander sig'Radia was saying to him. "Not only did you rid us of the last of that Infestation, but improved morale merely by appearing, Tree-and-Dragon shouting from your name-points, hard on the heels of rumors that Korval is . . .vanished."

  Daav gave her a grave smile. "Korval's luck. May we all walk wary."

  She was a woman of about his own age, he estimated, though he did not know her. Obviously, though, she had heard tales of Korval's luck, for she inclined her head formally and murmured, "May it rest peaceful."

  "How did this come to pass? An open attack on a Scout base by Liadens?"

  Scout Commander turned in her chair and
pulled a stack of hard-copy messages from under a jar full of firegems.

  "Some of it is here," she said, handing him the stack. She seemed about to speak further, but the comm buzzed then; a Healer had been found for the Kia pilot Daav had rescued from the courier boat.

  He gave his attention to the messages in his hand. Slowly, a picture built of suspicious activity, followed by conflicting orders and commands from Scout Headquarters and the Council of Clans, muddied by people going missing and a strange epidemic of Scouts being requisitioned—with the assistance of some faction or another within the Council itself—for the mysterious Department of the Interior. Amid it all, a familiar name surfaced.

  The commander finished her call and Daav held out the page.

  "You may blame Clonak ter'Meulen on my fortuitous arrival—he having sent for me. May I see him? His business was urgent, I gather."

  She looked away from his face, then handed him another, much smaller, stack of pages. He took them and began leafing through, listening as she murmured, "The Department of the Interior had him targeted. He went down to meet a Scout just in from the garbage run—Shadia Ne'Zame. That's when the battle began. They fired on her ship and . . ."

  Daav looked up, face bland. Commander sig'Radia shrugged, Terran-style.

  "The Department had a warship in-system—say destroyer class. They claimed it was a training vessel. They went after Ne'Zame's ship, fired on her. By then, we were fighting here as well—open firefights and hand-to-hand between us and the Department people here for training."

  She showed him empty palms.

  "Ne'Zame's ship was hit at least once, returned fire, got some licks in. The Department's ship was closing when she Jumped."

  Daav closed his eyes.

  "The only wreckage we have is from the destroyer," the commander continued. "There's one piece that might be from a Scout ship—but there was other action in that section, and we can't be certain. The destroyer was more than split open—it was shredded—no survivors. If it hadn't been, Nev'Lorn would have been in the hands of the Department of the Interior in truth, when you came in."

  Daav opened his eyes. "No word? No infrared beacons? Nothing odd on the off-channels? Clonak is—resourceful. If they went into Little Jump . . ."

  Her eyes lit. "Yes, we thought of that. Late, you understand, but we've had tasks in queue ahead. In any case, the chief astrogator gave us this." She turned the monitor on her desk around to face him, touched a button, and a series of familiar equations built, altered by several factors.

  Daav blinked—and again, as the numbers slid out of focus. As if from a distance, he heard his own voice ask, courteously, "Of your kindness, may I use the keyboard? Thank you."

  Then his hands were on the keyboard. The equation on the screen—changed—in ways both subtle and definitive. He heard his voice again, lecturing:

  "The equations are only as good as the assumptions, of course. However, the basic math is sound. This factor here will have been much higher, for example, if weapons were being fired—missiles underway in particular would have altered the mass-balance of the system dynamically—

  The equations danced in his head and on the screen, apart from, but accessible to himself. Moments later, when the acting commander played back the records she had of the encounter, Daav felt an unworldly elation, and watched again as his hands flew along the keypad, elucidating a second, more potent, equation.

  That done, there was a pause. He heard Aelliana sigh into his ear and found that his body was his own once more.

  He looked up from the monitor to meet the scout commander's astonished eyes. She looked away from him, to the construct on the screen, then back to his face.

  "Are you," she began. Daav raised his hand.

  "Pilot Caylon finds this a very worthy project, Commander. You will understand that Clonak is her comrade, as well." He sighed and looked at the screen. The equation was—compelling, the sort of thing a pilot could make use of. He pointed.

  "Your astrogator is to be commended. As you see, we have several congruencies here. This one in particular, which relies on the orbits assumed by the destroyer's fragments, gives us a probability cloud . . ."

  The hands on the keyboard were his own this time, the schematic he built from his own store of knowledge.

  "Very nearly we have two search bands," he murmured; "one south and one north of the ecliptic, which of course are expanding as we speak. Clonak . . .Clonak is a very stubborn man." He glanced up, meeting the commander's speculative eyes.

  "If there is someone you may dispatch o the south, I will search north of the ecliptic." He smiled, wryly. "We may yet retrieve your Scouts from holiday."

  * * *

  "ARE YOU READY, Clonak?"

  "I am, Shadia."

  "Your authorization?"

  "The ship is yours."

  "As you say."

  They'd managed to turn the ship and align it. The idea was simple. They were going to fire what in-system engines they had to decrease the size of their orbit and bring it closer to the more traveled ways of the system. The first time they'd tried, nothing happened, and Clonak had spent another two days tracing wires as Shadia refined the orbit-numbers.

  The other necessity was manning the radio, making certain that ship kept an antenna-side to the primary. They were on a round-the-clock talk-and-listen, and would be until—

  One of the more raspy bits of space debris in some time distracted them; it sounded almost as if it were rolling along the side of the hull. There was a ping then, and another.

  "If we're in cloud of debris—"

  "It doesn't sound too bad," Clonak was saying untruthfully, just as a full-sized clank ran the hull. Then came more of the scratching sound, almost as if the hull were being sandpapered or—

  "Well," Clonak said softly, and then, again. "Well." He moved to the battery-powered monitor and waved his hand at the other Scout. "Come along, Shadia. Let's have a look!"

  They crowded round the battery-powered monitor and Clonak once more turned it on and twisted the wiring until a connection was made.

  The view was altered strangely with a motley green-brown object . . .

  Belatedly, Shadia grabbed for the gimmicked suit radio and turned it on—

  "Please prepare to abandon ship. This is Daav yos'Phelium and Ride the Luck. If Scout ter'Meulen is aboard, it would be kind in him to answer—one's lifemate is concerned for his health."

  The hull rang, then, as it Ride the Luck had smacked them proper.

  "Breath's duty, but you've the luck," Daav yos'Phelium continued conversationally. "The hull is twisted into the engine back here . . . If I do not receive within the next two Standard Minutes an answer of some sort from the resident pilots, I shall have no choice but to force the hatch. Mark. Don't disappoint me, I beg. You can have no idea of how often I've dreamed of forcing open the hatch of a—"

  Here, the pilot's mannerly voice was drowned out by Clonak hammering the hull with one of his discarded pieces of piping.

  It was Shadia who thumbed the microphone on the makeshift radio and spoke: "We're here, Pilot. Thank you."

  CERTAIN SYMMETRY

  Adventures In

  The Liaden Universe® Number Four

  First Published In 2000

  By SRM, Publisher

  Certain Symmetry

  Is

  Dedicated To:

  Angela Gradillas, Sincitian

  The Wine of Memory

  "WELL, HERE'S AN improvement," the magician said to his apprentice, watching her walk the red wooden counter across the backs of her fingers. The counter reversed itself, returned along the thin, ringless fingers to the end of the hand, over the side, to be deftly caught by that same hand before it had fallen an inch.

  Moonhawk looked up with a grin, as proud of mastering this minor bit of hand-skill as she had ever been of learning any of the true-spells taught in Temple. It had taken days of almost constant practice to teach her muscles the rhythm requi
red to move the counter smoothly across her own skin. It was the sort of thing one might do while walking, which was Lute's stated reason for teaching her this skill first. They had been walking for two days.

  "I do believe you are ready to learn something a little more difficult," the magician said now, and looked around him.

  The road was empty. The road—the track, really, Moonhawk thought—had been empty for two days. Of all the people on Sintia, only Lute and Moonhawk found the village of Karn a destination of interest.

  "The season is early," Lute murmured, seeming, as he so often did, to be reading her very thoughts. "When summer is high, this road will be crowded with folk who have business in Karn."

  "It will?" Moonhawk frowned after her Temple lessons, recalling the long tales of provinces and products she and the rest of the Maidens had been obliged to memorize. Karn had certainly not been on any of those lists.

  She sighed and looked up. Lute was watching her with that particular expression that meant he was receiving the Goddess's own pleasure from her ignorance, which he would not, of course, enlighten until she asked him.

  "Very well," she said crossly. "Whatever comes out of Karn, Master Lute, that the world should walk for days to have it?"

  "Wine, of course," he answered, setting his bag down in the road with a flourish. "The best wine in all the world that is allowed to those not in Temple."

  She blinked. "Wine? But wine comes from Mandiel and Barbary . . ."

  "From Astong and Veyru," Lute finished. "Fine vineyards, every one. But the Temples are thirsty. Or greedy. Or both. No drop of wine from those four provinces escapes to a common glass. That wine comes from Karn."

  Almost she frowned again, for it was not his place to pass judgement on the Temples—and by extension the Witches who served the Goddess there. But she remembered another lesson from her days as a Maiden in Temple. The wine cellars at Dyan Temple were large and an accurate inventory of vintage and barrel very close to the heart of Merlot, the Temple steward. Inventory was considered the sort of practical, useful work most needed by Maidens who were, perhaps, just a bit prideful of their magics. There had been one season when Moonhawk had spent a good deal of time in the wine cellars, inventory list to hand.