Changeling (3 page)

The meal at last over, Ren Zel and Aunt Chane
escorted Jabun's treasure throughout Obrelt's house, showing her
the music room, the formal parlor and the tea room, the game room
and the door to the back garden. In the library, Aunt Chane had her
place a palm against the recording plate. This registered her with
the House computer and insured that the doors allowed to
contract-spouses would open at her touch.

Departing the library, they turned left down
the hall, not right toward the main stair, and Aunt Chane led the
way up the private stairway to the closed wing. In the upper
hallway, she paused by the first door and bowed to Elsu
Meriandra.

"Your room, contract-daughter. If you find
aught awry, only pick up the house phone and call me. It will be my
honor to repair any error."

Elsu bowed in turn.

"The House shows me great kindness," she
said, most properly, her high, sweet voice solemn. She straightened
and put her hand against the plate. The door slid open and she was
gone, though Ren Zel thought she looked at him, a flickering glance
through modestly lowered lashes, in the instant before the door
closed behind her.

Though it was not necessary, Aunt Chane
guided him to the third and last door on the hallway. She turned
and smiled.

"Temporary quarters."

This sort of levity was not like his Aunt and
Ren Zel was startled into a smile of his own. "Thank you,
ma'am."

"Thank us, is it?" She tipped her head,
considering him in the hall's dim light. "Let the flowers aid you,"
she said softly. "It will be well, child."

He had his doubts, in no way alleviated by
the few words he had actually exchanged with his wife, but it would
serve no useful purpose to share them with Aunt Chane. The Clan
desired a child born of the union of pilots: His part was plainly
writ.

So, he smiled again and raised her hand,
laying his cheek against the backs of her fingers in a gesture of
kin-love. "It will be well," he repeated, for her comfort.

"Ah." She seemed on the edge of saying
something further, but in the end simply inclined her head before
walking, alone, back the way they had come.

After a moment, Ren Zel put his hand against
the door and entered his temporary quarters.

He had been here yesterday, moving in his
clothes and such of his books as he thought would be prudent. He
had even opened the inner door and gone into the middle room--into
the contract room itself--walking lightly on the lush carpet.

The bed was ornate, old, and piled high with
pillows. The flowers twined up two bedposts and climbed across the
connecting bars, spilling down in luxuriant curtains of green and
blue. Sunlight poured down from the overhead window, heating the
blossoms and releasing the aphrodisiac scent. Standing by the
wine-table, Ren Zel had felt his blood stir and taken a step away,
deliberately turning his back on the bed.

The rest of the room was furnished but
sparsely: there was the wine-table, of course, and a small table
with two chairs, at which two might take a private meal; and a
wide, yellow brocade sofa facing a fireplace where sweet logs were
laid, awaiting the touch of a flamestick. The solitary window was
that above the bed; the walls were covered in nubbled silk the
color of the brocaded sofa.

Across the room--directly across the room
from the door by which he had entered--was another door. Beyond, he
knew, was another room, like the room he had just quit, where his
sisters were laying out those things Elsu Meriandra had sent
ahead.

Some trick of the rising heat had filled his
nostrils with flower-scent again and Ren Zel had retreated to his
own quarters, locking the door to the contract-room behind him.

Now, showered and dressed in the robe his
sisters had given him in celebration of his marriage, he paused to
consider what little he knew of his wife.

She was his elder by nearly three Standards,
fair-haired, wide-eyed and comely. He thought that she was,
perhaps, a little spoilt, and he supposed that came of being the
true-daughter of a High Clan Delm. Her manners were not entirely up
in the boughs, however, and she spoke to Aunt Chane precisely as
she ought. If she had little to say to him beyond those things that
the Code demanded, it was scarcely surprising. He was in all things
her inferior: rank, flight-time, age, and beauty. And, truth be
told, they had not been brought together to converse.

That which had brought them together--well.
He had taken himself to the sleep learner, to review the relevant
section of Code, for the contract-bed was a far different thing
than a breakshift tumble with a comrade--and there his wife had the
advantage of him again. She had been married once already, to a
pilot near her equal her rank, and Jabun had her child in its
keeping.

Sighing, he straightened his garment about
him, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror: Ordinary,
practical Ren Zel, got up in a magnificent indigo-and-silver
marriage robe that quite overwhelmed his commonplace features.
Sighing again, he glanced at the clock on the dresser.

The hour was upon him.

Squaring his shoulders under their burden of
embroidery, Ren Zel went to the inner door, and lay his palm
against the plate. The door opened.

Elsu Meriandra was at the wine table, back to
him. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her robe an expensive
simplicity of flowing golden shadowsilk, through which he could
plainly see her body. She heard the door open and turned, her eyes
wide, lustrous with the spell of the bed-flowers.

"Good evening," she said, her high voice
sounding somewhat breathless. "Will you drink a glass with me ...
Ren Zel?"

His name. A good sign, that. Ren Zel took a
breath, tasting the flowers, and deliberately drew the scent deep
into his lungs. He smiled at the woman before him.

"I will be happy to share a glass with you,
Elsu," he said softly, and stepped into the contract-room.

* * *

REN ZEL WOKE IN the room he had been
allotted, and stretched, luxuriating in his solitude even as he
cataloged his various aches. The lady was not a gentle lover. He
thought he could have borne this circumstance with more equanimity,
had he any indication that her exuberance sprang from an enthusiasm
for himself. To the contrary, she had brushed his attentions aside,
as one might dismiss the annoying graspings of a child.

Well, he thought ruefully, he had heard that
the flower did sometimes produce ... unwarranted ... effects.

So thinking, he rolled neatly out of bed,
showered, and dressed in his usual plain shirt and pants. He
stamped into his boots and picked up his latest book--a slender
volume of Terran poetry. The habit of taking a book with him to
breakfast had formed when he was a child and it had come to his
notice that the cousins let him be, if he were diligently
reading.

He was passing the game room on his way to
the dining hall when the sound of child's laughter gave him
pause.

It was not entirely ... comfortable ...
laughter, he thought. Rather, it sounded breathless, and just a
little shrill. Ren Zel put his hand against the door and, quietly,
looked inside.

Elsu Meriandra was playing catch with young
Son Dor, who had, Ren Zel remembered, all of eight Standards. She
was pitching the ball sharply and in unexpected directions, exactly
as one might do when playing with a pilot--or one destined to be a
pilot.

Son Dor was giving a good accounting of
himself, considering that he was neither a pilot nor the child of a
pilot. But he was clearly at the limit of both his speed and his
skill, chest heaving and face wet with exertion. As Ren Zel
watched, he dove for the ball, reacting to its motion, rather than
anticipating its probable course, actually got a hand on it and
cradled it against his chest. He threw it, none too steadily, back
to Elsu Meriandra, who fielded the toss smoothly.

"That was a good effort," she said, as Ren
Zel drifted into the room, meaning to speak to her, to offer her a
tour of the garden and thus allow Son Dor to escape with his
melant'i intact.

"Try this one," Elsu said and Ren Zel saw her
hands move in the familiar sequence, giving the ball both velocity
and spin. Dropping his book, he leapt, extended an arm and snagged
the thing at the height of its arc. He danced in a circle, the
sphere spinning in a blur from hand to hand, force declining,
momentum slowing, until it was only a ball again--a toy, and
nothing likely to break a child's fragile fingers, extended in a
misguided attempt to catch it.

"Cousin Ren Zel!" Son Dor
cried. "I could have caught it! I
could
have!"

Ren Zel laughed and danced a few more steps,
the ball spinning lazily now on the tips of his fingers.

"Of course you could have, sweeting," he
said, easily. "But you were having so much fun, it was more than I
could do not to join in." He smiled, the ball spinning slowly.
"Catch now," he said to Son Dor, and allowed the toy to leave his
fingers.

The child rushed forward and caught it with
both hands.

"Well done!" Ren Zel applauded. Son Dor
flushed with pleasure and tossed the ball back. Ren Zel caught it
one-handed, and allowed his gaze to fall upon the wall clock.

"Cousin," he said, looking back to the child,
"is it not time for history lessons?"

Son Dor spun, stared at the clock, gasped,
and spun back, remembering almost at once to make his bow.

"Ma'am, forgive me. I am wanted at my
studies."

"Certainly," Elsu said. "Perhaps we might
play ball again, when your studies free you."

Son Dor looked just a bit uneasy about that,
but replied courteously. "It would be my pleasure, ma'am." He
glanced aside.

"Cousin..."

Ren Zel waved a hand. "Yes, all you like, but
do not, I implore you, be late to Uncle Arn Eld. You know how he
grumbles when one is late!"

Apparently Son Dor knew just that, and the
knowledge gave his feet wings. The door thumped closed behind him
and Ren Zel let out his breath in a long sigh before turning to
face Elsu Meriandra.

She was standing with her head tipped, an
expression of amused curiosity upon her face.

"He is not," Ren Zel said, stringently even,
"a pilot. He will never be a pilot."

She frowned slightly at that and motioned for
the ball. He threw it to her underhanded and she brought it,
spinning hard, up onto her fingers.

"Are you certain of that, I wonder?
Sometimes, when they are young, they are a little lazy. When that
is the case, the spinball may be depended upon to produce the
correct response."

Ren Zel moved his shoulders, letting the
tension flow out of him. She did not understand--how could she?
Pilot from a House of pilots. He sighed.

"The children of this House are shopkeepers.
They have the reactions and the instincts of shopkeepers." He
paused, thinking of Son Dor, laboring after a toss that a pilot's
child would find laughably easy.

"He was striving not to disappoint," he told
Elsu Meriandra. "What you see as 'a little lazy' is Son Dor's best
reaction time. The spinball--forgive me--damage might well have
been done."

Her face blanked. She caught the ball with a
snap and bowed, unexpectedly low. "It was not my intention to
endanger a child of the House."

She straightened and looked at him out of the
sides of her eyes. "One was told, of course, but it is difficult to
recall that this is not a House of pilots. Especially when there is
yourself! Why, one can hardly hold a conversation in Guild Hall
without hearing of your accomplishments!" She bowed again, more
lightly this time. "You do our Guild great honor."

She did not wait for his reply, but turned
and crossed the room to put the ball away. After a moment, Ren Zel
went to pick up his fallen book.

"What have you?" she asked from just behind
him. He turned and showed her the cover.

She frowned at the outlandish lettering.
"That is Terran, is it not?"

"Indeed.
Duet for the Star Routes
is the title. Poetry."

"You read Terran?" She seemed somewhat
nonplused by this information.

"I read Terran--a little. I am reading poetry
to sharpen my comprehension, since I find it a language strong in
metaphor."

Elsu moved her gaze from
the book to his face. "You
speak
Terran."

That was not a question, but he answered it
anyway. "Not very well, I fear. I meet so few to practice against
that my skill is very basic."

"Why," she asked, the frown back between her
eyes, "would you wish to learn these things?"

Ren Zel blinked. "Well, I am a pilot. My
craft takes me to many ports, some of them Terran. I was ...
dismayed ... not to be able to converse with my fellows on those
ports and so I began to study." He paused. "Do you not speak
Terran?"

"I do not," she returned sharply. "I speak
Trade, which is sufficient, if I am impelled into conversation
with--with someone who is not able to speak the High Tongue."

"I see," Ren Zel murmured, wondering how to
extricate himself from a conversation that was growing rapidly
unpleasant for them both. Before he arrived at a solution, however,
the lady changed the subject herself.

"Come, we are both pilots--one of us at least
legendary in skill!" she said gaily. "What do you say we shake the
House dust from our feet and fly?"

It sounded a good plan, he owned; for he was
weary of being House-bound already. There was, however, one
difficulty.

"I regret," he said, his voice sounding stiff
in his own ears. "Obrelt does not keep a ship. One is a
pilot-for-hire."

"As I am," she said brightly. "But do not
repine, if you haven't your own ship. I own one and will gladly
have you sit second board."