Fledgling (20 page)

He did make it sound a like a tenured opportunity, Kamele thought. She sat back, delicately slipping her hand out from beneath his.

"Speaking of expanding bases," she murmured pointedly, and had the rare opportunity of seeing him chagrined.

"Your pardon." He inclined his head briefly, then looked into her eyes. "Over-enthusiasm aside, it does answer many difficulties."

She sipped her wine, considering. "It seems to," she said slowly. "But when we come home—Jen Sar, she'd be odder than ever! And an absence will give the Safety Office time to write a recommendation. Without me here to deny it—"

"Yes—exactly so. Which is why you will be canny and schedule her
Gigneri
immediately you are both returned."

Kamele stared at him. A sister's understanding, indeed! she thought, anger sparking.

"She's too young!" she snapped. "If I won't drug my daughter for expedience, what makes you think that I'll push her into a—"

"Allow me to be utterly sympathetic to your concern," he interrupted. He pulled out his mumu and tapped the screen.

"I put my time to profit while awaiting your return," he said. "And I find that—you may contrive."

"Excuse me?"

"There's a loophole," he explained, putting the mumu on the table before her, pointing at the screen. "Look."

"As recently as fifty years ago, the
Gigneri
and the First Pair were distinct as rites of passage. First, one is entrusted with the full tale of one's genes. Then, when one has had a bit of time to adjust and to—expand one's base—one fully participates in a celebration of joy, as a new and potent adult." He sat back. "
Much
more rational than piling every shock and discovery into one event."

Kamele listened to him with one ear while she read his précis.

"You might remember that I told you of my mother's best friend," she murmured, most of her mind on reading. "She came from Alpensward, where they kept to the older ways." She looked up, eyes bright. "She was a secondmother to me, and I miss her still."

"I remember." Jen Sar smiled. "What better tribute to her memory than to induct your daughter into adulthood as she would have wished?"

Kamele nodded, chewing her lip, then handed the mumu back to him. "Send me the cites, if you will."

"Of course." He touched a quick series of keys. "Done."

"Thank you." She reached for another cracker and some cheese.

"When will the committee depart?" Jen Sar asked.

Kamele sighed. "We need to get Hafley's approval, the dean's approval, the directors' approval, then the Bursar's office—you know the procedure. We could have something in two days—or by the end of the semester."

He nodded, looking thoughtful.

"I believe, then, that we must address my topic." He gave her a wry look. "I do know that it is late, but I must plead necessity."

Necessity, as Kamele had learned, was not invoked lightly. For Jen Sar to do so must signal an overwhelming concern.

She nodded, and held out her cup. "Pour, then speak."

He poured, going so far as to refresh his own cup, though the wine must be even more dreadful for him, Kamele thought, than for her. He did not, however, immediately speak, but sat for some few moments, his hands curled 'round his cup, staring into the unsatisfactory depths.

Kamele sipped, and recruited herself to patience.

At last, he looked up.

"Theo has given me what I believe to be the round tale of her last few encounters with the Safety Office," he said slowly. "In addition, this evening I took the liberty of administering a few very small tests of physical reaction." He paused, looking at her.

Kamele nodded for him to continue.

"Based on Theo's report and my own tests, I believe her to be . . . quite near to that point we had discussed previously, where all of her powers align. In my view of the matter, it would be . . . tragic for the Safety Office to be allowed to interfere at this juncture. I therefore proposed to Theo, and now to you, that she enroll in a dance class."

"A—dance class," Kamele repeated, blinking at him. Had she drunk
that
much wine, she wondered? But, no; Jen Sar's points were often oblique. "Please explain."

"Gladly. Dance is a marriage of mind, body, and—soul, if you will. Taking such a class will demonstrate to the Safety Office that you are seeking to treat Theo's 'agility problems.' Indeed, dance is a well-documented therapy for clumsiness and certain so-called 'physical limitations.' "

"It is," Kamele noted, "mid-term. And I'm afraid, my friend, that I am not acquainted with anyone in Dance."

"But I am," Jen Sar said, not altogether surprisingly. "I have this evening been in communication with Visiting Expert of Dance Professor Noni, who tells me that she has room for a novice in her Practical Dance class, and will be pleased to send the student's mother the necessary card."

Kamele shook her head. Jen Sar
did
meddle, though usually not so blatantly as this. He must, she thought, be very worried.

"If Professor Noni will still agree to include Theo in her class after she is informed of the . . . uncertainty of her continued attendance," she said slowly, "I'll be pleased to receive the card and to approve the change in my daughter's academic schedule."

"I will relay that message to her." He picked up his mumu, tapped a rapid message, thumbed
send,
and slipped the device away.

"Thank you, Jen Sar," Kamele said, and smiled when he looked up. "It's late," she added.

". . . and neither propriety nor our current circumstances allows me to remain for what is left of the night," he finished lightly, and slid to his feet. "I believe I may repair to my office and get some work done. Do you think you will have the matter with the Chapelia settled by the time I leave the Wall . . . later today?"

"Yes; I'll take care of it first thing," she promised, slipping off her stool and walking with him to the door. "Was Theo—very alarmed?"

"Curious, rather. Though . . ." He paused and turned to face her. "I fear that I have made a misstep. She now knows that it's possible to turn off the emitter."

"Oh," Kamele said, feeling slightly giddy, "no!"

"I trust it will take her a few days at least to puzzle out the method."

"A few days—" She looked at him helplessly, then giggled.

"Well," she said. "It ought to keep her out of trouble." She giggled again and shook her head.

"Indeed it ought," Jen Sar said solemnly, and touched her cheek, very briefly.

"Good-night, Kamele. Sleep well."

Retrospection on an Introduction
Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

Kamele spun on her toes in the center of the common room, looking down into the floor mosaic. Leaves, and birds, and cunning furred animals moved beneath her feet.

She laughed as Jen Sar came into the room, wine glasses in hand. "I thought you said
small
."

He lifted an eyebrow and looked about, as if just discovering his environment.

"Small," he said, stepping forward and offering her a glass, "is a relative term. The house I grew up in was larger." He looked about again, and bowed gently. "Many times larger, in fact." He sipped wine. "Of course, it enclosed the clan entire."

Liad, Kamele thought, raising her own glass, was certainly a strange place, with an abundance of odd customs. She would have gladly heard more of those customs, but Jen Sar was disinclined to talk much about the world he had left. Kamele theorized some disagreement with the directors of his kin group, which had resulted in his taking up the role of traveling scholar, until nomination to the Gallowglass Chair brought him to Delgado.

"Can you see the stars from your garden?" she teased him.

"I can and I do," he answered with a gravity that was belied by the quirk of a brow. "Shall I show you?"

She hesitated, belatedly covering her hesitation with another sip of wine. "That would be lovely," she murmured, "but the stars rise late, don't they? I need to be back to the Wall before—"

"Yes, of course." He hitched a hip onto the arm of the couch and looked about him, glass held casually in long, clever fingers, the silver ring a sly gleam against his golden skin.

Kamele bit her lip and walked over to sit on the couch near his perch. He looked down at her, smiling, and her stomach tightened.

Her friendship with Jen Sar Kiladi had grown deeper over the last two semesters; the pleasure she took in his company as surprising as it was satisfying. But Ella was right, she acknowledged. Satisfying as it was, it was time to alter their relationship, or cut the association entirely. People were beginning to talk, the more so since Jen Sar had declined Professor Skilings' offer. She'd heard from Skilings' assistant, who had been working, forgotten, in the next room when the offer was made, that Jen Sar had professed himself honored, obliged, and desolated not to be able to accommodate her.

Skilings had not been pleased. No one had
ever
turned her down, not, so rumor went, since she'd moved to Topthree. Mortified, she had looked about her for a reason for Jen Sar's refusal—and her eye had inevitably fallen on Associate Professor Kamele Waitley, who spent a great deal of time in the company of a very senior scholar. And, as Ella so reasonably pointed out, Kamele could not afford to have Skilings as an enemy.

It would be best for everyone, Ella said, for Kamele to end the friendship.

Ella, Kamele reminded herself, liked pretty men.

"Jen Sar . . ." she began, sounding breathless to herself.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Yes, my friend?"

"I . . . that is . . ." Her voice failed her entirely, and she looked away, biting her lip. It wasn't as if she was inexperienced! She'd had two previous
onagrata,
not counting her
Gigneri
pairing—and here she was acting like a green girl, stumbling over her first offer!

"Kamele?" Jen Sar's deep voice carried concern. "Are you well?"

"Yes, I—yes." She leaned forward and awkwardly put the wine glass on the side table with a bit of a clatter, then turned to face him, looking up into his sharp, unhandsome face. She took a breath.

"Jen Sar," she said firmly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "It would be . . . an honor to accept you as
onagrata
."

Both eyebrows rose, his lips parted—and then there was that moment of arrested movement that had become familiar to her, and the odd feeling that Jen Sar had . . . stepped away . . . from himself.

Abruptly, he smiled, a sweet, open expression she had never before seen from him. He leaned forward and put his glass next to hers on the table.

"
Tra'sia, cha'leken!
" he said gladly, and bent down to kiss her on the mouth.

Strictly speaking, she should have initiated the kiss, but Kamele found she didn't mind that he had taken the lead. Indeed, it was some time before she could speak, and some little while more until she cared to.

"What did you say?" she asked eventually, her cheek snuggled against his shoulder. "Before you . . . kissed me?"

Jen Sar sighed lightly, ruffling her hair.

"A Liaden—expression of joy," he murmured, sounding . . . chagrined.

Kamele laughed, and reached for him again.

Leisure and Recreation Studies: Practical Dance
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

Dance was . . . unexpectedly interesting.

She'd had to swap out of the multi-Team free study session, which meant having to do more of her solo work after school, but, Theo acknowledged, that wasn't exactly a burden, since she was grounded, anyway.

But dance . . . it was like math, and lace making, and scavage, all together; and it was
almost like
the patterns she saw in her head. Better even than that, she thought as she stripped out of her Team coveralls and pulled on the clingy leggings and stretchy sleeveless shirt, once everybody in the class had the pattern down, they all did
what
they were supposed to do,
when
they were supposed to do it, and nobody got hurt, or fell, or bumped into anybody else.

Not even her. Theo Waitley, the clumsiest kid in Fourth Form.

She grabbed the bit of lace out of her bag, slammed the locker and headed for the dance floor. Bek was already there, propped up on an elbow and doing lazy leg lifts. She dropped cross-legged to the floor next to him.

"Hey, Theo." He gave her a friendly nod, like he always did. Bek had been in class since the beginning of the term, and he was
good
; one demo was all he ever needed to pick up a dance move. She wouldn't have blamed him for being annoyed that Professor Noni had teamed him with the new kid. Instead, he actually seemed
happy
to have her as a partner.

"What've you got there?" he asked, sitting up in a boneless move that reminded her of Father.

"This?" She held the lacy web outstretched on her fingertips. "It's a dance."

"Really." He leaned forward, gray eyes slightly narrowed as he traced the connections. "I'm not sure I see—oh! It's the new
suwello
module we started last time! I can see the wave . . ." He extended a careful finger and traced the line. "And here's where we all spin out into a circle . . ." Bek sat back, grinning, and running his fingers through his heavy yellow hair. "That's pretty smart. How'd you think of it?"

"Well . . ." Theo bit her lip. "I make lace for a—for something to do with my hands. And I was thinking about how dancing was like math
and
like making lace, so I—what's wrong?"

Bek was staring at her. "
Dance
is like
math,
" he repeated, and shook his head. "What an idea!"

"But it is!" Theo said, surprised, and then looked at him closely. "You're joking, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not joking," he assured her. "Dance is
an escape
from math!"