Star Rigger's Way (24 page)

Carlyle nodded. "They're on their way. That is, at least Skan and Janofer—that's Skan Sen and Janofer Lief." He sat and looked uncomfortably across the dark-paneled office at the shipowner.

"Good for you," said Kloss. "Have you made plans as to who you want to fly with?"

That threw Carlyle for a moment. Could Kloss have forgotten? No, no—surely he was just being polite. "Well, we hoped that you might have
Lady Brillig
back by now. And that we're not too late. I was gone longer than I'd expected to be, your time."

"I certainly can use you," said Kloss. But his next words punched Carlyle, leaving a vacuum in his gut. "I can have a ship for you to fly, all right. But I can't say that it's likely to be your old ship." He paused, as though to allow Carlyle to comment; but when Carlyle kept a stunned silence, he continued, "We are going to be adding several ships to our fleet, and we'd be happy to have you with us."

Carlyle couldn't breathe. His head spun and his stomach hurt so badly he nearly doubled over. "You—you aren't getting—
Lady Brillig
?" he protested hoarsely. But that was what this had all been about! What could he tell Janofer and Skan? It had never even occurred to him that Kloss might not reacquire the ship! "But—you said—"

Kloss rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. "It's possible I spoke prematurely," he admitted. "I don't recall precisely what I said last time—but in any case, circumstances have changed, and nothing is definite yet."

"When . . . will you know?" Carlyle asked weakly.

"Hard to say," Kloss replied. "The best thing for you to do is to stay in touch with my assistant, Alyaca Perone. Let me call her, and I'll introduce you." He reached for the intercom.

Carlyle's head swam in a void, with no sensation remaining. There was no will in him to fight any longer. Whatever would happen, let it happen. Alyaca. Of all the times . . . of all the people to face now.

While Kloss spoke into the intercom, Carlyle squeezed his arms together across his chest. Trying to hold himself together. Eyes blurring.

The door paled, and Alyaca walked in. She stopped in surprise when she saw Carlyle; but she recovered quickly and produced a businesslike smile, with only the corners of her mouth trembling. Carlyle's chest was so tight he allowed his face no expression at all.

"Alyaca," said Kloss, "this is Rigger Carlyle."

"Yes, we've met before," she said. "How are you, Gev?" She walked over to Kloss's desk but faced Carlyle.

He was stunned to be reminded of how attractive she was, and how unlike a rigger in her poise, her control. "I'm . . . fine," he said, before losing his voice.

Kloss said to Alyaca, "Gev wants to be kept informed if we acquire those ships, and particularly if we reacquire the old
Lady Brillig.
Though I've told him that last is, I regret, unlikely."

"Certainly," said Alyaca. "I remember your being interested in that ship." She maintained a perfectly controlled expression.

"Fine, then. Why don't you show him your office so he'll know where to go to see you," said Kloss. "Gev, thanks for coming in. Let me know if there's anything else we can do for you."

Carlyle numbly followed Alyaca. When they were in the privacy of her office, he stood near the door and said, "Well . . . hi."

She allowed herself a flickering smile, a real one this time, and said, "Hello, Gev."

They looked at each other for a minute, and then he said, "Well—I guess I should be getting back. And I'm sure you have work to do."

"Actually, I don't," she answered. "I was just getting ready to leave the office."

They looked at each other again, for what seemed five minutes to Gev, but was probably closer to five seconds. He couldn't read her expression. There was sort of a smile at her lips, and her eyebrows were raised expectantly. A dozen feelings rushed back to him, feelings he had forgotten in only four months. He wondered if Alyaca had forgotten. "You have a new job, I guess. You didn't used to handle this kind of business," he said, gesturing uncomfortably. She nodded. "I got in touch with my friends," he said, bobbing his head. "They're coming back here, and we'll be together again. All but one of us."

Silence. Then she said, "That's good to hear."

"Well, yes. And Cephean's still with me. The cynthian. He's off in the woods again, with his riffmar. I think I told you about him before."

"Yes, I remember."

"So, well, it seems as though things might be working out at least sort of the way I'd hoped."

Alyaca finally stirred. She picked up a filled pipe from her desk, lit it carefully, and inhaled from it. She held the smoke for a moment, then exhaled. The scent was of brintleaf, a relaxant herb harvested to the south of Jarvis. "Good," she said, blinking.

"Alyaca—"

"If you were going to say," she interrupted, "that we should go out for the evening, I don't think it's a good idea."

Carlyle's chest pounded with conflicting urges, and he blurted, "I think . . . right now it wouldn't be such a good idea. I need to rest . . . and we'll be seeing—"

He stopped. "Oh—" he said. He flushed and began trembling.

"Hey, Gev, I didn't mean to make you—"

His words tumbled out over hers. "Alyaca . . . the way I left . . . that time. I'm sorry. I really am. There was just no way I could help it—I tried." His eyes watered.

"I understand," she said softly.

He started. "Do you?" he whispered. His thoughts went forward and back; it was hard to see her, with his eyes so blurry, but he thought her gaze was kindly. Perhaps she did, after all. Perhaps she did.

* * *

Three weeks passed with excruciating slowness. There was no word from his friends, and no word from Cephean either. Finally, lonely and worried, he flew out to the forest and went looking. He found the cynthian living in a tree bower with the riffmar. They spoke together and walked, and Carlyle spent the night in a nearby cabin. Cephean was having a good vacation, it seemed, and he wanted to stay for a couple of weeks more.

"But you're coming back, aren't you?" Carlyle asked nervously.

"Ho yiss," said Cephean.

Reassured, Carlyle flew back to the Guild Haven.

Still there was no word from the spaceport, and none from Kloss Shipping. He spoke with Alyaca but did not see her; they remained amicable at a distance, and that seemed best.

* * *

Four days later, she called with news that sent his mood plummeting. Kloss was definitely
not
reacquiring
Lady Brillig.
But he was buying a ship of the same model, a somewhat newer ship named
Guinevere.
She would be arriving at the Jarvis spaceport soon, where the registration would be transferred.

"Irwin said he might consider changing her name to
Lady Brillig II
, as a gesture to you and your friends," she said over the phone.

"No!" Carlyle shouted angrily. Trying to make another ship be
Lady Brillig
would be worse than letting the name die.

Alyaca looked startled.

"Sorry," he said, more soberly but still fuming. So what was the meaning of a name, anyway? He could fly this ship. Or he could probably, eventually, track down his old ship to her present owner and perhaps fly for him. But she would no longer be
Lady Brillig
; she'd be something else. So was it the ship that mattered, or the name, or the people?

"Let me know when it's in," he said finally. "My friends still haven't arrived."

* * *

Walking through the spaceport the following week, he saw—he was almost certain—
Lady Brillig
sitting on a pad, being readied for flight. The ship's name was
Caravelle III.
He turned away bitterly, not willing to approach closely enough to actually determine whether she was
Lady Brillig
in fact, or just another ship that looked like her.

Cephean returned a day later, to his intense relief; but when he greeted the cynthian, Cephean's response was muted. "Is anything wrong?" he asked worriedly.

"Ssssssss," muttered the cynthian, his ears twitching. He looked up at Carlyle with unblinking eyes.

The cynthian seemed all right physically. Carlyle looked at the riffmar. One, two, three . . . eight. "Cephean, where's the other riffmar?" he cried. "One of the young ones. What happened?"

Cephean sputtered. "G-hone," he whispered. "H-man-ss t-thake, k-hill!" He hunched mournfully.
(Grief. Anger. Need.)

"Oh no, Cephean!" cried Carlyle. "How, Cephean, how?"

The cynthian did not answer. He padded into his own quarters, with the riffmar troupe following in disarray; and, sadly, he began to work at a melon. Carlyle felt helpless to do anything except watch and stay with the cynthian until they could speak of other things.

Cephean's grieving mood seemed to pass quickly. But he refused to say more about the lost riffmar, and Carlyle did not press him. He would say only that soon he could begin growing a new group of riff-buds.

* * *

Carlyle sat in the Guild restaurant, sipping a roasted coffee and moodily watching the movement of ships, some distance away on the field. A waiter appeared and said that a rigger was at central exchange, trying to locate him.

"What rigger?" he asked, his heart stopping.

"I believe the name was Lief. Janofer Lief," replied the waiter.

Carlyle felt a series of lurches in his breast that lasted for a count of ten. He grunted, tried to clear his throat, and waved his acknowledgment to the waiter when he found that he could not speak at all. He ran to the central desk in the Guild lobby. The area was crowded. First he peered around to see if he could spot her; then he went to the front receptionist.

"It's possible she went to the central exchange desk if she was trying to locate someone," said the receptionist. "Why don't you try there?"

Of course. That was where the waiter had said she was. He went to the central exchange desk and asked the man there if he had spoken with Janofer.

"I just got here," said the man. He pointed to a woman sitting in an alcove behind him. "Talk to her. She'll know."

Carlyle went around to the alcove; he was keeping his emotions from exploding, but he felt the dam beginning to give way. He had to find Janofer while he could still talk.

"You're looking for Janofer Lief?" the woman asked, before he could say a word. "She was looking for you, too. She heard that you were in the Guild restaurant, so she went there."

Carlyle closed his eyes until the blood stopped rushing to his head. Then he ran back toward the restaurant, taking another route.

He met Janofer coming out of the restaurant.

She was dressed in a dark jumper, with a red belt, and with her hair long and silvery. Carlyle stood—unable to move, to speak, to breathe. He thought he might begin to cry, but he couldn't do that, either. The pain in his chest swelled until it engulfed his entire body.

Janofer smiled crookedly, biting her lip. "Hi, Gev."

Carlyle choked—then ran to her. She grabbed him and hugged him tightly. "Oh, Gev, it's so good! It's so good!" She kissed him on the neck and grinned and hugged him again.

He grinned, too, but he couldn't speak for about a minute, until Janofer stepped back and gazed at him.

"You came," he managed to say. "I knew you would."

"Of course!" she cried. "How could I not, after you came all that way? And you have to tell me how you reached us!"

"I wasn't even completely sure that I'd really reached you," he confessed. "It might have been some sort of crazy—"

"It wasn't," she said. "Oh, it was crazy enough—what hasn't been, lately?—but I knew
that
was real. As soon as we go meet Skan, you can tell me all about it."

"He's
here?
" Carlyle exclaimed.

Janofer nodded happily. "We came in together from Theta Aregiae. He's waiting inside, in case you showed up there." She took his arm and marched him back toward the restaurant. "You look great, Gev."

He blushed. "You look exactly the same," he said, though it was not quite the truth. Oh, she was beautiful and graceful, and she was a wonderful sight; but her face seemed fuller and softer, and there were a few lines he didn't remember, and her eyes weren't as quick and ethereal as in the memory-visions he had carried for so long. But should they be? he wondered. Haven't you learned?

Skan rose from a table to greet them. He shook his head. "Gev, you crazy lunecock! You were real, after all. I wondered, I really wondered." He seized Carlyle by the upper arms and embraced him. "So now tell us. I had the feeling that you might have been in some kind of spot when you called us. How did you do that, anyway? And what about Legroeder?"

They all sat, and for hours they drank and ate and caught up on the events which had separated them. When Carlyle asked what had happened originally to make them break up the crew, Janofer said, "I wrote all about that in a letter—" and she stopped and put a fist to her forehead, "which I forgot to leave for you, which I discovered a month later when I found it in my bag. Oh damn, Gev, I'm sorry."

Carlyle said dizzily, "That's all right." He swallowed hard and went back to his original question. "What happened after
Lady Brillig
was sold?"

Janofer looked at Skan, then back at Carlyle. "Well, Gev, it seemed like time to go different ways. Our last flight hadn't gone too well."

"What went wrong?" he asked in bewilderment.

"We had . . . problems . . . as a team. We missed you a lot. We had some trouble bringing
Lady Brillig
in."

Carlyle looked from one to the other. "But you always worked together beautifully." He started to say that they had worked beautifully with
him
, too, at times when he'd needed them. But they wouldn't have understood that.

Skan said, "Time changes things, Gev. We were having problems. It happens."

"You two?"

"And Legroeder," said Janofer. "So when we lost the ship, we decided it was best to try going our own ways." She poked at her glass and stared wistfully across the table, and for a moment looked at neither of them.