by Sharon Lee
* * *
Miri woke as he was slipping back under the covers.
“You’re cold,” she said, rolling over to share her warmth, a leg thrown companionably over his thighs, an arm across his chest, and her head on his shoulder.
“The Tree had wanted me in the garden,” he said, nestling his cheek against her hair.
“And it couldn’t wait ’til the day got a little warmer? And later?”
“It was somewhat excited,” he murmured.
“’Bout what?”
“There, I am not completely certain. I believe it wished me to know that Theo is in a pickle.”
Miri snorted a half-laugh, and he smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “Precisely so.”
II
The car rounded the curve, en route for Surebleak Port and the Road Boss’s office. Val Con stood for another minute, until he lost the sound of the engine in the breeze.
He shook himself then and went back into the house, down the hall to the delm’s office.
Crossing to the sideboard, he poured himself a cup of tea and carried it with him to the desk. He settled into the chair, put the cup aside, and brought up the screen.
The first thing to display was the calendar, reminding him that it was Miri’s turn to sit in on the Port Authority meeting this evening, after the Road Boss’s office closed. The weekly meeting of the Council of Bosses was scheduled to begin an hour later, at the council hall in the city. He, for his sins, would be present there. Not to be outdone in industry, Anthora and Ren Zel were to attend the meeting of the Weather Task Force.
As the three events were scheduled to end within a half hour of each other, they would all four meet at Nova’s town house for Prime meal.
Where, after the meal was done, there would very likely be a family meeting.
Val Con sighed.
Well. Busy hands were happy hands. So his lifemate sometimes assured him, with a certain gleam in her eye.
He swept the calendar aside and opened the delm’s mail.
Not surprisingly, there were messages in-queue. A quick glance established that none were from Theo. After the Tree’s dawn dance of delight, he had been in daily expectation of at least a note informing him that she was en route to Surebleak.
Thus far, however, his hopes had languished unfulfilled.
He frowned slightly. Some while ago, he had sent Theo a pinbeam, urging her to come home and make the acquaintance of her niece. The response to this had been silence, and a noticeable—one might say very noticeable—absence of Theo.
He had several times considered sending another, more pointed, message, bidding his sister home in no uncertain terms—and had on each occasion decided against. Had he been Theo’s delm…
But there. He specifically and deliberately was not Theo’s delm, having made the decision, with his co-delm’s agreement, not to offer her entrée into the clan. Once, he would have done so immediately, in order to gain for his sister—however much she counted herself Terran—potent protection from what harm the universe might offer.
Since the clan’s removal to Surebleak, however, to be known as one who stood beneath the Dragon’s wing was far more likely to attract trouble, than repel it.
That being the case, he was merely Theo’s brother: an unfortunate circumstance, given that Theo’s home culture held the proper duty of women to be the care and protection of the vulnerable—in particular, children and males of all ages. Even his position as her elder did not weigh nearly so much with his sister as the fact that he was male. His necessities must naturally wait upon hers.
Still, he had played the kin card cannily, gambling that the joyous occasion of a niece might tempt her where a brother did not. It appeared, however, that he had miscalculated.
He held one final card in his hand. Theo’s mother was on-world, and it had been in his mind to play that ace, encouraging Kamele Waitley to pinbeam her wandering daughter and desire her to come home.
He sipped his tea, considering.
Though there had been a regrettable lack of Theo docking at Surebleak Port, there had also been no recent news of ghost ship sightings, or renewed demands that Captain Waitley be returned to Eylot for trial and execution. That being so, and considering the Tree’s…display…he thought prudence might be indulged.
It could well be that Theo was en route, having merely neglected to send ahead to inform kin—which was entirely in keeping with Theo, as he knew her. Travel, of course, took time. Another eighteen days was not an unreasonable span in which to allow circumstances to develop. If by then there had been no communication from Theo or news of Bechimo in Surebleak orbit, then it would be time to play his ace.
He put his cup down, frowning slightly.
On the topic of missing kin, there was one more outstanding item: his father, Daav yos’Phelium, one of the clan’s few surviving elders, and doubly precious for that…
Daav yos’Phelium had taken grievous hurt far from home, and had been succored by an ally. That same ally, known to the underuniverse as “Uncle,” or, more often “the Uncle,” was…trustworthy to a point. That he would care for Korval’s elder to the best of his considerable ability to do so was very nearly a certainty. However, Uncle’s business came first for Uncle, as he had, to his credit, made clear. He had also hinted that Daav’s wounds had been severe and required care before he could be released with confidence from the Uncle’s custody.
Taking all into account, and in consultation with a calendar, one was becoming…anxious for Daav’s return to kin and clan. If the Uncle’s business kept him elsewhere, surely a master pilot might be put off at any port and not despair of finding a way home, even supposing that there had been no option to tap Korval’s own resources.
If Father’s wounds kept him yet in the Uncle’s care…that was very worrying, indeed.
“The difficulty lies in catching hold of the Uncle,” Val Con observed to Merlin, who was sleeping on the papers to the left of the screen. “And the risk lies in annoying him.”
Merlin flicked a grey ear and settled himself closer into the pile.
“You are very right. One ought to consult with the delmae before doing anything rash. I am, after all, merely half a delm. Such a decision surely calls for the wholeness.”
That decided, at least for the moment, he turned his attention to the mail queue.
At the top, a note from Pat Rin, forwarding a message from Shan, to the effect that the Terran Trade Commission found itself in the position of needing to perform a complete and proper survey of Surebleak Port; the report on file having been judged to be not only badly out of date, but incomplete.
Pat Rin was inclined to think poorly of the former survey team’s mettle, but he supposed, as they had waited this long for a determination regarding their request for an upgraded rating, they might easily wait another year or so before declaring Surebleak a free port and themselves pirate princes.
Val Con grinned.
He could easily enter into his cousin’s sentiments, but it was difficult to find fault with the former team’s decision not to venture out onto a port where they would have been, at best, robbed and, at worst, murdered. And to be perfectly fair, TerraTrade had guaranteed that a new survey team was already on its way to Surebleak, which would appear to indicate that they were taking the current application seriously.
Not that he would presume to say so much to Pat Rin, who was no doubt enjoying his moment of pique immensely.
Truly, Surebleak Port was much improved, in large part due to Pat Rin’s efforts, upon seizing control of the largest—indeed, the only—city on the planet. In fact, Val Con thought, sipping his tea, it was so far changed from the ragged port which the first team must have faced, that a new evaluation would be warranted in any case. The presence of Korval’s yards, not to mention the Emerald Casino, the newly opened Trade Bar, and the Bazaar, ought to be enough of themselves to elevate their rating from local-port-of-last-resort, to regional-port-all-services.<
br />
Once the upgrade was in place, then they might begin the expansion into the upper tier—though that must wait upon the further rehabilitation of Surebleak City.
Well.
He filed the letter. The port and the city were, after all, Pat Rin’s responsibility. Given Korval’s interests, they naturally wished access to a premier port and yards, and to that end the delm would willingly advise. The work of making it so, however, would fall to Boss Conrad and the Council of Bosses.
The next letter…
The next letter was from Falish Meron, High Judge of the Juntavas. It was a perfectly convenable, even chatty, letter, containing such on-dits as the High Judge might suppose he would find of interest. The Juntavas had a vast network, and sources that Korval could not have equaled, even before their banishment. And in truth, the information did interest him. That it was sent as a quiet demonstration of how useful Korval would find it, to become a part of that vast network…
He sighed.
The Juntavas was an old and complex organization.
As was Clan Korval.
The business entity known as Clan Korval operated under half-a-dozen trade names, each of which kept contracts, paid bills, invoiced clients, nurtured partnerships, and supported allies.
Though their circumstances had been reduced, they had in no way been simplified. Such was the complexity, that, should it become necessary to cease operations, it would likely require a team of qe’andra specialists a dozen years to shut down the business of Korval.
As for the clan itself…
The kin-group known as Clan Korval existed: it stood by its charter; it sheltered and protected its members; supplied itself; negotiated new contracts, and honored existing agreements. Thus, the qe’andras’ most basic definition of a viable clan was satisfied.
It was true that their numbers continued low, due in part to the tendency of yos’Pheliums of finding interesting ways to die before providing the clan with an heir. The deliberate strike against Korval in his grandmother’s day had further reduced them, until now, in this present, challenging circumstance, they were dangerously few.
Happily, there was guidance available: The Liaden Code of Proper Conduct outlined two approved strategies for dealing with low numbers.
One: Korval might invite another clan to marry it or—less advantageously—accept another clan’s invitation to merge, thus creating a single, more populated House. Whether the resulting entity would bear the name of either partner, or adopt something entirely new would be laid out in the contract of merger.
The Code of course assumed that the clans in question were of impeccable melant’i and resided properly within the web of Liaden society. While Korval’s banishment had not completely eliminated their opportunity to make a good marriage, it had severely limited the field from which they might choose.
Well.
The Code also allowed that a clan of few members, where kin-ties were weak, might be dissolved, by action of the delm.
There were indeed clans who might welcome individuals from Korval. Shan would be sought after; master traders had high value, and the near-trained heirs of master traders scarcely less. Some might balk at Priscilla, for reason of her being Terran, while others might squint at that in order to gain an experienced commercial captain.
For the rest of them—well. He shook his head. There was nothing to be gained by playing that game. The bonds of kinship within Korval were strong. They could be forcibly broken, of course, but harm would be taken on all sides. Best to seek another solution…first.
And the core problem remained: They were too few to adequately protect themselves.
They did have enemies. There were those who found in them a foe to be hunted and slain—those who had lost kin, property, commerce in the strike on Solcintra—as well as those remaining agents of the Department of the Interior, who held as their last mission the utter destruction of Korval.
One might not, perhaps, face an entirely hostile universe, but certainly far more daggers were drawn than the twenty or so Korval might raise in its own defense.
The Juntavas, now. High Judge Meron, speaking for the Juntavas chairman, had offered a solution which was not so very different from that outlined in the Code.
Join us, and you will be us. And we protect ourselves.
The Juntavas was many times more than a thousand strong; they had successfully withstood the Department of the Interior; the Liaden Council of Clans was as nothing to them.
But to allow Korval entire to be…absorbed.
The Juntavas would of course want the clan businesses as part of their marriage portion—and reasonably so. However, they would also expect Surebleak to be delivered to them, Korval having, however unintentionally, conquered the planet and subjugated its people to their own purpose.
And there one found a problem.
Korval’s business the delm might cede, for guarantees. But they had no rights to Surebleak, to trade it away for the safety of one clan.
Still, Korval had not…quite refused the kindly offer made by the Juntavas, which was only prudence. Now was not a time for relying too heavily upon the wisdoms of the past, nor for closing doors suddenly found open.
As if to underline the point, there came a knock at the office door.
“Come,” Val Con said.
Mr. pel’Kana, the butler, bowed from the doorway.
“Mr. Shaper asks to see you, sir.”
Mr. Shaper was their closest neighbor, a man of uneasy temperament. He had never before asked to see Val Con, though Val Con was given to understand that he frequently called upon Mrs. ana’Tak in the kitchen, more often than not bringing gifts from his vegetable garden or fruit trees.
Odd though he undoubtedly was, Yulie Shaper likely represented a far simpler prospect than any other matter on his desk this morning. Indeed, it was very possible that, had Yulie come to his neighbor with a problem in hand, Val Con would be able to dispatch it easily and to the satisfaction of all.
And wasn’t that a pleasant thought?
“Please,” he said, “bring Mr. Shaper to me here. A fresh pot of tea, too, if you will, Mr. pel’Kana, and some of Mrs. ana’Tak’s cookies that Mr. Shaper favors.”
“Yes, your lordship.”
Mr. pel’Kana vanished, closing the door softly behind him.
* * *
Yulie Shaper was in rare good humor, arriving in the office with a positive spring in his step and what appeared to be one of his “binders” tucked under one arm.
“Cozy place you got here,” he said, looking around the office. “You read all them books?”
“I fear not. But one cannot simply get rid of books, you know. Especially books which have reposed so long on the same shelf.”
“Reckon they’re good insulation,” Yulie said, nodding at the shelving stretching from floor to ceiling along the interior wall.
“I suppose they must be,” Val Con agreed gravely. “But come, sit with me over here. Tea and refreshments will soon reach us, and you may acquaint me with the reason for your visit.”
“Right neighborly, seeing me so quick. Thought maybe I’d make a ’pointment, like with other bosses—well, now, not all t’other bosses. Melina, she usually has a minute for me, but Melina’s dad and Grampa, they worked together some; and she knew me an’ Rollie, growing up.” He cast a sapient eye over the cluttered desk and the darkened screen.
“I don’t wanna interrupt, if you’re busy.”
“Believe me, Mr. Shaper, you are a welcome diversion from those matters on my desk.”
“So long’s I don’t put you off your stride; I know bosses’re busy.”
He sat in one of the three chairs grouped around a low table by the window, putting his binder on his knee. His seat gave him a view of the inner garden and a glimpse of the Tree beyond the shrubberies.
“My little tree’s growing like it wants to be as tall as its pa, there. I think it don’t know winter’s coming.”
“Per
haps it knows too well and wishes to be large enough to withstand the challenges of the season.”
“Ain’t how plants usually operate, in my experience. ’Course I ain’t had any experience with trees comin’ live from off-world…Say! I had that pod off your tree—you remember, back when I was getting ready to come home after the big party? It was pretty good eatin’, that pod. And what d’ya know, but my little one’s got a pod growing—already! Just looking at it makes my mouth water.”
Of course it did, Val Con thought. Korval’s Tree had a long—a very long—history of providing the members of Korval with seed pods, which they had been conditioned from birth to accept and savor. Even knowing that the Tree was a biochemist, that it had been…tampering with Korval’s genes for generations, was insufficient reason for the clan to abandon their ancient ally—or overlord.
Apparently, the Tree felt that a new homeworld ought to be celebrated by…acquiring more allies of the mobile persuasion.
“Your tree will seek to establish a relationship with you very quickly,” Val Con said. “It is, as ours is, a—sentience. It uses the pods to alter those who are in…symbiosis with it. Occasionally, it sends dreams.”
“Does it now?” Yulie looked interested, but not alarmed. In fact, Yulie looked less alarmed than Val Con had previously seen him. “Usually don’t care for dreams, myself—wake me up more often than not. But I’ll tell you what, I been sleeping like a rock the last couple weeks—no dreams at all, and wakin’ up just that sharp, even before I get my coffee.”
Yes, thought Val Con, it would appear that the Tree—and the Tree’s progeny—was wasting no time in commencing to meddle. And there was yet another crime to be placed at Korval’s feet: that they were not one invader, but two.
The office door opened to admit Mr. pel’Kana and the tea tray. By the time the cups were filled, the cookies admired, and the butler dismissed with the information that they would pour for themselves, Yulie had found another topic of conversation.
“I sure do favor these,” he said, picking up a golden-brown raisin bar with a squiggle of white icing down the center. “Mrs. ana’Tak, she give me the receipt, but mine don’t come out the same like hers do.”