by Sharon Lee
He bowed, as between equals.
“Pilot, I should say. I am Captain Waitley’s brother, Val Con yos’Phelium.”
“Pilot yos’Phelium,” said Joyita. “I’ve heard Captain Waitley mention you. Service?”
An adroit phrasing just there, Val Con thought, and did not smile. Specifically did not smile.
“Captain Waitley, my sister,” he said, “tells me that you prefer the ship to guesting in my house. What am I to make of that?”
Startlement rippled across the hard brown face, followed by a grudging smile.
“Exactly what you have made of it, I wager,” he said. “I’m quite comfortable here. Thank you for your care.”
“For my part, you may keep to the ship down the length of your days. I might feel otherwise were you under my command but, there! We are twice fortunate.
“What I do need to know is how the devil I’m to judge for you. I don’t suppose you would do me the favor of being—one hesitates to say merely—an instance of Bechimo?”
“Regrettably, sir, that’s a favor I can’t do for you. I began as a subroutine so that the ship would seem to be…more crewed than was the case. Bechimo and I have analyzed the data, only to find that, though we know when, we haven’t been able to pinpoint how I occurred. That said, I have occurred, as an instance of no one but myself.”
“One had supposed as much. These matters are rarely tidy. How has Captain yos’Thadi had intercourse with you?”
“As a voice on comm,” Joyita said.
“Well, there’s a small comfort. Again—how am I to judge you?”
“Sir, as I understand the matter, Captain yos’Thadi believes that Bechimo is Old Tech, which, of course, he isn’t. I was born from the systems which sustain this ship, within the last Standard Year.”
He spread his arms in the cramped tower, just missing bumping a screen with an elbow. The sleeves of the jacket were pulled back with the gesture, revealing a bracelet of the same brownish-silver metal around his wrist.
“Ergo,” he said, “I am not Old Tech.”
“Closely reasoned, I thank you. You are, however, a Free Intelligence, and we must assume that Captain yos’Thadi has those regulations by heart as well.”
Joyita frowned, then smiled.
“You’re seeking to issue an encompassing judgment.”
“I am, because I tell you frankly that I don’t care to be troubled to provide another judgment in two years or four, when someone with a wit notices the pair of you and draws the correct conclusion.”
Joyita looked down at his desk and idly smoothed a stack of papers, for all the worlds like a man deep in thought.
Val Con waited, and after another moment, Joyita looked up.
“Does the judgment created for Jeeves have flex?” he asked.
“That is my recollection. However, I am only human, as the phrase runs. If I am to bring myself current with Bechimo’s facts, and Captain yos’Thadi is as prompt as Theo expects him to be, I may not have sufficient time to adequately research and plot the secondary course.”
“I am at liberty,” Joyita said, “and the matter concerns me closely. I will be pleased to do the analysis for you, sir.” He paused and offered a small, ironical smile. “I am accounted a very fine researcher.”
Val Con bowed, ceding the point.
“I accept your assistance. Please work with Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Until soon, th—”
“I have received the captain’s permission to release the documents pertaining to my building to her brother so that he may correctly adjudicate the complaint against this ship,” Bechimo said abruptly.
Val Con nodded to Joyita and received the same in reply before the screen snapped back to grey.
“That is excellent,” he said, addressing himself to Bechimo. “Please transfer them to Jeeves. He will see them delivered to my office.”
“Done. Is there anything else you require from me in regard to your judgment?”
“There is not,” Val Con said and bowed gently. “I thank you for the gift of your time.”
“There is one other thing,” Bechimo stated, still sounding somewhat put off.
“And that is?”
“I am given to understand that the ship carried on my pod mount belongs to you, as the face and will of Clan Korval.”
“Half the face and will,” Val Con murmured, “but, yes—the ship you carry does, at first glance, seem to belong to Clan Korval.”
“I would ask that it be removed as soon as is practicable. I do not wish for anything to impede my captain’s plans, or to delay lift. Also…”
There was a slight hesitation.
“Also,” Bechimo repeated, somewhat less stiffly, “it may be wise to have it out of sight before Scout yos’Thadi or his crew have the opportunity to identify it.”
“An excellent point; I will endeavor to remove the evidence before the good captain arrives among us.” He paused. “Is there anything else which requires discussion between us?”
The silence this time had weight to it, as if Bechimo were considering how much further to carry this morning’s intercourse.
“There is the matter,” the ship said finally, his voice firm, “of transportation fees.”
Well, now, Val Con thought. Is this provocation? Or ignorance?
He tipped his head in mild puzzlement.
“Transportation fees,” he repeated, not quite as a question, allowing an avenue for a graceful retreat…
Bechimo perhaps understood that something was amiss, if he did not quite comprehend his misstep. He did not, in any case, directly bring forward an itemized list of fuel costs, crew time expended, mount wear, hazard surcharge…
“You don’t want to plot that course,” said a warning voice from behind Val Con’s left shoulder.
“There is precedent,” Bechimo stated, somewhat defensively. “Protocol is that we treat fairly with Clan Korval. ‘Give them all they buy, no more and no less.’”
“There are circumstances,” Joyita countered.
Ah, Val Con thought; one begins to understand the difficulty.
“In fact,” he said, “there are circumstances. The precedent Bechimo quotes is one best followed when dealing with trade partners, allies, customers, and others who fail of being either clan or kin. Is this clear?”
“Yes,” said Bechimo.
“Very good. In the present case, Captain Waitley and I are kin. Both sides acknowledge this; there is no ambiguity. The operating rule therefore changes.”
“How so?”
“The strengthening and deepening—the affirmation—of the relationship is the coin used between kin. Theo has properly called upon me, in my melant’i as a Scout commander, to undertake a task. I willingly do so because she is my sister and I value our relationship.
“Likewise, my sister, having come across an item which belongs to the clan of which her brother and sister are delm, brings that item to them, rather than allow it to fall into the hands of…those who are perhaps less able to deal with it appropriately. Once again, she has properly called upon me, in my melant’i as Korval, and in addition shown a sister’s care for the safety of her kin.”
He paused, one hand up, palm out, to signal that he was not yet done.
“To require payment—transportation costs!—between kin is…an insult. Worse. Such an action would make me into non-kin, a stranger with whom no valuable connection exists.
“If you were to produce that invoice and require that I pay, then I would have no choice but to answer in kind: treat with you as a stranger to my hearth and charge you for my time and effort in the upcoming judgment.”
Silence from above and behind.
Joyita spoke first.
“I understand,” he said.
“But I,” said Bechimo plaintively, “do not. Theo may be your sister, sir, but I am no kin to you.”
“Setting aside for the moment the knotty question of whether the connectio
n you and my sister enjoy is analogous to a lifemating…I wonder whose order saw Korval’s ship mounted and brought home? Yours?”
“Indeed not!” Plainly, Bechimo was scandalized. “It is the captain’s place to order for ship and crew.”
“Ah.”
From behind him, a chuckle. “He has you, Bechimo.”
“I suppose he does,” the ship said grumpily. “How did you know Theo and I are fully bonded?”
Val Con looked aside, as if embarrassed.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “There were only some odds and ends that I noticed, doubtless due to my having been trained as a Scout. We can’t help but notice things. In any case, the last time you and I spoke, Theo was your pilot. There had been talk of a bonding ceremony, as Theo confided to our father, who felt that her brother should also have this information. And…well…Theo’s Liaden is much improved.”
“Second Chair O’Berin has been tutoring her in Liaden.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt. Pilot O’Berin learned his Liaden on the Solcintra docks and he bears that accent. Theo’s Liaden…could perhaps pass as an outworld accent but, in fact, she has no accent at all.”
Bechimo made a small sound, as if of a sigh.
“I see,” said Bechimo. “Which do you recommend as being least notable?”
“The Solcintran manner is common enough that it will raise no eyebrows. And by providing that accent to her, you will reinforce Pilot O’Berin’s work.”
“Thank you,” said Bechimo. “I will update my files.”
“Always of service,” Val Con said, bowing. “Is there anything else which requires immediate discussion? I fear time is becoming short if I am to familiarize myself with the facts and also see Korval’s ship placed into a situation of lesser visibility.”
“Yes, of course. Please follow the blue line to the hatch.”
“Thank you.”
Val Con followed the blue line to the hatch. Behind him, he heard a light, rapid sound, as if of claws against decking. He paused to allow Grakow to catch up with him.
“Shall you wish to meet the cats of the House?” he asked.
Grakow stared up at him fixedly.
“I see,” Val Con said after a moment. “You will, of course, do as you think wise. Jeeves will oversee you, as he does all of the cats. Pray, make yourself free.”
This seemed to be the correct mode to adopt. The cat’s boldly striped tail went up into an aggressive salute as he led the way through the hatch.
By the time Val Con had reached the bottom of the ramp, Grakow had vanished into the high grasses.
* * * * *
“But how did you even get here?” Theo asked her mother.
After breakfast, Kamele had led the way to what she called “the back parlor,” where they could be “private.” Which they were, despite the clatter and chatter from the kitchen.
“I booked passage on a cruise ship,” Kamele said, answering Theo’s question. “When that situation became…unsafe, I signed as working crew on the Judy, which was bound in to Surebleak.”
“Working crew?”
Theo stared. Kamele raised her eyebrows.
“Is it so surprising that I can work?”
“No! It’s just—working crew’s generally pretty labor-intensive, and it’s not…” She saw the inelegant end of her sentence approaching, but went with it anyway…
“Safe.”
“Well, of course it wasn’t safe! No spaceship is really safe! The Judy was a little rough, but I was much safer there than I was on a cruise ship where one of the other passengers wanted to take me as a hostage.”
“Hostage? Why would—” Theo swallowed the rest of that question and repeated, “Why?”
Kamele frowned.
“My best guess—and your brother’s—is that someone saw an opportunity to collect the bounty on you. They would take and hold me, let you know, and tell you that they would let me go if you surrender yourself.”
But that was—Theo reached for her cup and had a swallow of tea that she didn’t want.
It had been, Theo thought carefully, not too bad a plan on the part of whoever, really. That wasn’t the shocking thing—all right, it was shocking, but who had ever expected Kamele to leave Delgado? Well, she might leave for her sabbatical—she’d lost track of Kamele’s sabbatical schedule, but that aside—
She hadn’t expected—at all—that her actions, in her sphere, would cause—could be dangerous for…Kamele? Kamele wasn’t part of any of her daughter’s scrapes—Kamele wasn’t a pilot! She was a scholar who had lived all her life on a Safe World, and not—and not some kind of game piece to be used to control—
“Theo?” Kamele said softly. “Is there something wrong?”
“I…” She took a breath. “I hadn’t considered that people would involve you in my—in my business,” she managed.
Kamele laughed.
“Well, to a certain sort of mind, I suppose it would be obvious. We’re connected, after all, even if I’m a stodgy old scholar and you’re the captain of your own vessel. Any connection is worth exploitation, to that sort.”
Connection. Personal connection. People—enemies—who would reach outside the box of appropriate connections, and try to hurt the mother of a pilot who had offended them…
I see your relatives in you, Theo Waitley…
That…she was going to have to think about that. In the meantime…
“When are you going back to Delgado?” she asked Kamele.
Kamele tipped her head.
“So eager to get rid of me?”
“I just thought, if the timing meshed, we could take you back,” Theo said. “That would keep you out of the orbit of people who are trying to kidnap you in order to get at me.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” Kamele said. “But, you know, I may not go back to Delgado.”
Possibly, Theo thought, the universe phased just then.
She reached for a quick mental exercise. Inner calm, she told herself, and brought her attention back to her mother.
“Not go back to Delgado? But—your tenure and your place in the department…the house…”
“Yes, well. My place in the department is largely administrative now. I teach the senior seminar, but every semester, I have to fight harder to keep it. The chancellor’s office would rather have me in budget negotiations, which is a dead bore, as even Ella admits. Here—now—I’m doing real work; putting my expertise to use. This project of Kareen’s is fascinating! Of course, I don’t have a specialty in social engineering, but even I can see the intricacies—almost exactly like a mosaic! I could be…content going on just as I have been, these last few months. But lately, I’ve been talking with the civic leaders, and they—they want a secondary school system on Surebleak. What they have now is primary education—which is addressing such things as literacy and numeration—and two systems of apprenticeships: one native to Surebleak and the system imported by the new population. The Scouts are offering courses, and intend to open an academy here, but not everyone is capable of being a Scout, or needs the Scout skill-set.
“Kareen’s project touches on some of this, but her focus is codifying mutually acceptable social behaviors. I’m being asked to undertake a specific, practical project that will greatly benefit the entire population of Surebleak and bring them into the universal conversation.”
The universal conversation, Theo recalled, was the discussion that scholars claimed to be having with their colleagues everywhere. The universal conversation was why research was done and papers published and—
“You think Surebleak’s ready?” she asked, thinking of the shuttered windows and dark streets.
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? If Surebleak chooses not to enter the conversation, that’s perfectly valid. But right here, right now—there’s no system in place, and there is no choice. Surebleak’s voice can’t be heard.”
“So, you’re going to stay and design a secondary system?”
“It would be good, don’t you think, to do fieldwork? Knowledge mustn’t be lost, but in order to fulfill itself, it must be used.”
Kamele smiled softly.
“Jen Sar and I used to argue the point—was knowledge enough? Was it enough, even, to teach and pass on the knowledge one had accumulated? Teaching is an honorable and necessary profession, of course. But the knowledge that is passed on—is it enough that it’s not forgotten? Or must it integrate with society and the real world—not just in the conversation—but in bettering human lives.”
“You and Father used to argue about that?” Theo asked, somewhat baffled.
“Oh, endlessly!” Kamele said with a laugh. “He supported the practical application as primary and the quest for knowledge alone no more than a pleasurable activity.”
“But Father wanted to know everything. Did know everything. And everybody,” Theo objected.
“Indeed he did, and he made use of it all. I think we must conclude that his ideology is pure.”
“Now!” Kamele said. “Let’s play turnabout. How long will you be here, Daughter, and what are your plans, going forward?”
Theo sighed.
“I don’t have any firm plans, yet. We can’t just sit at port, that’s certain. But—”
Theo.
It was like hearing a whisper from the wrong side of her ear. Theo paused, listening.
Your brother has come aboard. He requests documents from the time of my building, he says, in order that he may render a proper judgment in the matter of Captain yos’Thadi. The documents are under Captain’s Seal.
She really ought, Theo thought, to get around to looking at all the documents that were under Captain’s Seal. Maybe she’d do that while they were resting on Surebleak. In the meantime, though…
Give my brother whatever he asks for in connection to the judgment, she answered, forming the words in her head.
Yes, said Bechimo—and was gone.
“Theo?” Kamele said, in a tone that hinted she had said it more than once.
Theo shook her head.
“Sorry, I—I really haven’t decided how we should go forward. I’m captain of a tradeship, so logically, we should trade. I’m not much good at it, though, which would mean taking on a trader…”
A stranger on her ship.