by Sharon Lee
In fact, it was exactly these few hours right now, at the bright new edge of the day, when she would have enough time to—not explain herself exactly, but to catch up with her mother, and to hear about her trip, and her arrival at Surebleak.
Fine, then.
“Jeeves?” she said softly, like Hevelin would wake up if she talked any louder than a whisper. “I’m going into town to have breakfast with my mother. Could you send a car around for me, please?”
“Yes, Captain Waitley,” Jeeves said, soft-voiced as well. “Tommy Lee will drive you to town. The car will be at the front door in five minutes.”
Theo frowned.
“Just the car’s fine; I know how to drive.”
“The necessity of a driver has nothing to do with your ability to drive,” Jeeves said. “It has everything to do with status and melant’i as it manifests in the Surebleakean culture. People of importance are driven; they have ’hands—bodyguards—to insure their safety and to advertise their importance. Master Val Con has a driver when he goes into the city, as does Miri. You are the Road Boss’s sister, the captain of a starship; a person of more than ordinary importance. You are not sent naked out onto the streets.”
Theo opened her mouth. Closed it.
This wasn’t an argument she could win, she thought. Jeeves was every bit as stubborn as Bechimo—and older, too. If she didn’t agree to do it his way, there wouldn’t ever be a car available for her to drive into the city so she could find out what her mother thought she was doing. And if she got too stubborn herself, Jeeves would call Val Con or—worse—Miri, to lay down the rules.
“It would shame the House,” Jeeves said softly, “to have you drive yourself, bereft of security. Perhaps more significantly, it might be seen as a…signal to a certain sort of person that the House held you cheap; that you were, in fact, their legitimate prey.”
Theo sighed—and nodded, holding her hands up to show empty palms.
“Right. Please tell Tommy Lee that I’ll be glad of his company.”
“He will be most gratified to hear it,” Jeeves said, without a hint of irony. “Five minutes, at the front door.”
* * * * *
“So,” Miri said to Nelirikk’s sterner-than-usual face, “what is in the cases?”
Nelirikk was tired, that was plain. Nelirikk was more than a little irritated. Despite being a member of a warrior race not particularly known for their good humor, Nelirikk was most usually even-tempered. That he was letting irritation show couldn’t be good news.
“They give you a bad time?”
He shook his head.
“They were respectful and soldierly. They laid out their terms and would negotiate no further, understanding, as they said, that I was the captain’s aide and could not speak for her.”
All right. That was what rankled. He’d figured to hand her a solution this morning, and the pathfinders hadn’t cooperated.
“What’re their terms?”
“They will give the cases, and the contents, to Hero Captain Robertson. In exchange, she will find for them employment in keeping with their skills. They have been a team, lifelong, and will not for any reason be separated.”
“No reason to fix something that works,” Miri said. “They fit to be seen?”
“They have been awaiting the captain’s attention.”
“Then let’s not keep ’em in suspense any longer,” she said, heading down the hall toward the exercise room, Nelirikk a tall, silent shadow at her back.
* * *
Diglon opened the door from the inside, with a salute so smart it could’ve driven itself into town. A bit much from Diglon, who was respectful and even a little shy, but not overly fond, now he had a choice, of soldiering. Apparently, there was a point to be made to the pathfinders.
“Hero Captain Miri Robertson arrives!” he rapped out. “Troops to attention!”
“Rifle,” Miri said mildly, her return salute a study in moderation.
She strolled down the room toward two tall people standing at strict attention, each with a case tucked under the left arm, carry strap crossing the chest to the right shoulder.
Personal space was two steps wider for them than it was for her, she saw when she hit their boundary: just a little twitch near the right eye of the soldier on the left. She kept on, two steps more into her comfort zone, and stopped there to take their salutes.
They weren’t long coming, and they were every bit as sharp as Diglon’s had been.
She gave them the same courtesy she’d given Diglon, adding, “At ease,” in Trade, just to see what she’d get.
They relaxed into something approaching parade rest. Good enough.
“I’m Captain Miri Robertson,” she told them, looking up into lean brown faces, shape and features close enough they could’ve been sister and brother. “Identify yourselves.”
“Captain!” said the one on the left. “Stost Strongline, Pathfinder, Captain.”
“Strongline?” she asked.
“Captain! Captain Waitley gave us papers noting Strongline as our surname.”
“I see.” She turned to the one on the right, who looked like she wanted to go back to attention.
Instead, she took a deep breath and met Miri’s eyes firmly.
“Chernak Strongline, Captain,” she said. “Pathfinder.”
“Stost Strongline, Chernak Strongline,” Miri repeated with a nod, and then raised her voice like she wanted to be heard across a busy battlefield.
“What makes the pair of you think you can bargain with command?”
* * * * *
Win Ton yo’Vala took the chair indicated. Win Ton yo’Vala accepted the offered cup of tea.
Win Ton yo’Vala was, yes, nervous, and he had sense enough not to try to conceal the fact from another Scout.
Val Con considered him openly, as he sipped his tea. Such frank regard was unlikely to put the lad at his ease but, then, it was not his intention to be comforting.
The last report he had received regarding this same Scout yo’Vala, from a plainly distraught Theo, was that he lay near death, his own biologic systems turned against him by the intercession of cruel pirates wielding Old Tech.
Obviously, he had come past that crisis and had recovered himself in fair measure. There remained a slight hesitancy of motion, possibly visible only to a Scout’s eye, and a minute misalignment of the back muscles, which was likely permanent, given that he had established himself an unorthodox, but seemingly solid, center.
“Did you,” Val Con said quietly, choosing the mode of greater-to-lesser, which was not the worst he could have done to the boy, though it was by no means warm or welcoming, “intend to implicate my sister into your…difficulty?”
Brown eyes flashed up to meet his. The gaze steadied, and the face settled. He answered as he was addressed, taking the subordinate side.
“No, sir; I did not. If you will have the round tale, I thought I had taken the captain’s key for my own, until it was too late to mend my error.”
He drew a deep breath.
“I knew that Theo—Captain Waitley—would keep what I sent her close and quiet. She being the only one I could think of who might do so is a measure of the troubles which have and continue to beset the Scouts.”
“I understand. Where did you find Bechimo, or did he approach you?”
“He had come to rest among the prohibited devices which had been collected and warehoused. No such ship was in the inventory I had been given, thus I investigated. The hatch opened to my hand. I did a proper tour, systems came up, and by the time I had entered the bridge, the ship entire was awake and functioning.
“I took what I believed to be first chair and inserted one of two keys lying in the tray, whereupon the ship took my measure, declared me its copilot—and I belatedly realized that here was no derelict.” Win Ton paused for a restorative swallow of tea, sighed, and shook his head ruefully, as a fond elder might over the folly of a youth.
“Why no
t leave the keys—or at least the one which you had not taken for yourself?” Val Con asked. “Why bring Theo into the matter at all?”
“I realized that I had woken something which…perhaps…ought to have been left sleeping. And I realized, as many of us did who had any recent communication with headquarters, that the Scouts had been infiltrated. Also, as perhaps you may not know, those who are responsible for the collection of Old Tech are…zealous…” He hesitated, seeming at a momentary loss.
“I had heard,” Val Con murmured, “overzealous. You feared they would dismantle the ship—hastily?”
“In essence, though I have not been able to understand, even now, why I thought it important then that the ship be preserved.”
A deep breath brought his shoulders up to ears, followed by a long sigh.
“During my initial inspection, I thought the ship old. Later, when I had been trapped and detained by those agents of the Department of the Interior, the key…the ship, through the agency of the key, behaved in such a manner as to make me believe for a time that it was indeed Old Tech.”
“For a time,” Val Con repeated. “Do you not now believe that Bechimo is Old Tech?”
Win Ton yo’Vala shook his head.
“I believe that Bechimo is antique, not ancient. I believe it…possible that the master healing unit aboard may partake, somewhat, of the Old Technology, but my understanding is that the thing had been built according to plans provided by the Uncle, in which case—”
He spread his hands.
“All bets are off,” Val Con finished for him, in Terran. “However, you speak in terms of belief, not certainty. Surely there are ship’s records—provenance?”
Another show of hands, fingers wide, palms empty.
“Such may be in the captain’s files; they have not been made available to third board.”
Val Con nodded.
“Very well. Who is this Captain yos’Thadi?”
A conscious look from pretty brown eyes. One began to understand Theo’s partiality, and had he been merely a bed-friend…but he was not. He was the branch from which all subsequent events depended.
“Captain yos’Thadi has a reputation to build and a desire to cleanse the universe of every remaining piece of Old Tech.
“It was Captain yos’Thadi and his crew who escorted me to Volmer, and begged a boon of the Uncle. In exchange for this, did I happen to survive the treatment, yos’Thadi demanded I give to him my own key to Bechimo.”
“Which bargain you have declined to keep.”
Scout yo’Vala outright laughed.
“I know where best to place my fear!” he said. “Aside from the certainty that Theo would space me were I to do any such thing, I would myself far prefer to see the key destroyed and myself left shipless, than to place it in yos’Thadi’s hand. In pursuit of his legend, he will ignore facts or alter them. It is in his mind that Bechimo is Old Tech, and there is nothing that can teach him better.”
He paused and raised one hand, as if a further thought had occurred.
“I would not have you think Captain yos’Thadi all vinegar and no honey,” he said slowly. “He did…promise…that he would see me returned to active duty—to the field—once I had honored our bargain.”
“Did he.” Val Con tipped his head. “What are your intentions going forward, Scout yo’Vala?”
Utter seriousness and something else—not, Val Con thought, studying him, love—not wholly that, but some more potent emotion…
“If she will have me, I will continue as a member of Captain Waitley’s crew. We have discussed this. She does mean to captain Bechimo. Whether she will do so as a pirate, or in some more legitimate work, will depend upon how matters fall out with yos’Thadi.”
“So, all and everything depends upon my judgment and the good sense of Captain yos’Thadi.”
Scout yo’Vala looked abashed.
“Sir, once again you may hold me to account. I interfered. Theo would have killed yos’Thadi on the docks at Minot had he been allowed to push her further, and thus made pirates of us all.”
Val Con raised an eyebrow.
“Do you doubt my sister’s aptitude should she care to embrace the trade?”
“I doubt Theo in nothing, sir, upon my honor. But I do not think that she would like to be a pirate.”
“Or she might like it too well,” Val Con said. “Does the Luck smile, we will never discover which. Perhaps, as you say, it is just as well.”
He rose, and Win Ton yo’Vala came quickly to his feet, centered and very nearly perfectly straight.
“The Scouts,” he said, and the younger man stiffened, pretty eyes wary.
“The Scouts,” Val Con said again, in the mode of comrade, which allowed him some gentleness. “They cannot have you back in the field, Pilot; not as you stand now. It would be clerical, or possibly admin, and not even a garbage run to salve you.”
A stiff incline of the head.
“Sir. I am aware.”
“Yes,” Val Con said. “I thought that you might be. I will ask, as her brother, that you refrain, as much as you may, from involving Theo in any more of your scrapes. She will surely find enough on her own.”
A grin melted the stiffness.
“I’m certain you are correct, sir.”
* * *
Scout yo’Vala having been shown the door, Val Con returned to his desk, picked up his cup, and drank off the last of the tepid tea.
He then closed his eyes and ran the Scout’s Rainbow, for calmness and for fortitude.
“Jeeves,” he said, opening his eyes. “Please ask my sister to join me here.”
“Captain Waitley is not in the house, Master Val Con. She called early for a car and stated her intention to visit her mother.”
Val Con raised his eyebrows.
“A car?” he prompted.
“After some discussion of local custom, the captain accepted Tommy as her driver and escort.”
“I see.” He sighed.
“Well, then, I suppose I shall have to breach protocol.”
“Just so, sir. Shall I contact Bechimo?”
“No. I thank you,” Val Con said, looking out the window at one of Surebleak’s dim and blustery mornings.
“It looks a pleasant day for a walk. I will go myself.”
* * * * *
The car came to a stop in front of a house on the intersection of two streets, marked with a pair of stacked signs on a pole. The sign on top said Dudley Avenue; the one on the bottom, Farley Lane.
“Looks clear,” the driver said. “What you want to do, Captain, is wait for me to come ’round and open your door. We want me between you and any trouble that happens to be up early. So, after you’re out of the car, you just walk right up those stairs there and ring the bell. I’ll be right behind you. That’s how it runs here because you’re visiting kin, and there’s no trouble I can personally think of that can get inside Lady Kareen’s house in fit shape to open the door, after.
“If we were coming up to a house less-known, then it would be me doing the knocking, and the first one they’d see, opening up.”
Tommy’d been a merc, as he’d told her during the drive down to the city…until clan politics had spoilt it for him, and then he’d come home—like half of Liad, he said with a grin—to Surebleak. He was employed by Clan Korval as a man-of-all-trades: ’hand, driver, on-call gardener, carpenter when Tan Ort needed an extra pair of hands, and liaison work on the occasions it came up. He’d been a technical sergeant in the merc—protocol specialist.
“You understand me, Captain?” Tommy said now, catching her eyes in the screen. “I know it’s annoying, having me right at your shoulder, but it’s the custom here, and I’d rather you not get shot on my watch. That’s a deal?”
She nodded. “Deal.”
“Right you are then. Wait for me to come ’round to you.”
The short walk across the sidewalk and up the stairs, with Tommy at her back, wasn’t annoying, The
o thought, so much as it was aggravating. She’d’ve liked to stop to take a good look at the street, the houses, and what people might’ve been about, but he hurried her up to the door, where there was a palm plate that must be the bell she was supposed to ring.
She heard a distant chime from inside and nodded once, her eyes drawn to the colored panes of glass that ran down the wall next to the door. Yellow, red, then blue. Maybe it was art; at least, it was pretty. Pretty, and fragile; not much like the little bit of Surebleak she’d actually managed to see during the ride from Jelaza Kazone. Plain-front houses, not many windows facing the street at all. The occasional roof garden, some shops, lights coming up behind shuttered store windows. So far as she’d seen, art was in short supply on Surebleak’s decidedly not-pretty streets.
Local time, so Tommy’d told her, was earlyish. Not that he thought the timing would be a problem, everything considered. Lady Kareen’s household kept strict and regular hours, and he didn’t doubt that Theo’d find herself arriving just in time for breakfast.
She heard footsteps approaching the door from the inside, and in spite of Tommy right there at her back, and her own gun within easy reach, she felt her shoulders stiffen and her stomach pull into a knot.
Kamele…she hadn’t seen her mother in—well, it’d been Standards, hadn’t it, since she’d left the academy rather than go to prison, and presented herself at Hugglelans as her first and last best chance of getting piloting work. At that point, she hadn’t cared—in-system garbage scow would’ve been all right with her, except that it would’ve technically violated the academy’s demand that she leave planet.
Kamele would’ve changed, Theo thought, swallowing hard. People did; they got older and—
Something snapped on the far side of the door, and it swung open to reveal a tall woman with suspicious brown eyes set deep in a lean, ungiving face. There was a gun on her hip—a good gun, Theo saw, well-used, and well-kept.
“What business?” the doorkeeper snapped, frowning down at Theo.