Fledgling (48 page)

"And Jen Sar," Ella added. "You can come out from beneath the couch, now."

Theo stepped forward to grab Kamele's case off the conveyor belt, which she managed without bumping into the woman with the inefficient, jabbing gestures, and no sense of balance. That woman grabbed too soon, knocking her bag off the belt and dragging it against the direction of its rollers, missing running over Theo's feet by no effort of her own. Theo shook her head, scanning up the belt for her bag, wincing when the ambient sound system cycled from music to the "Welcome to Delgado" message. She'd hardly been in the terminal half an hour and she already had that announcement by heart. If she heard it much more—and it was, she thought glumly, certain that she would—maybe it would just fade into background noise.

Maybe.

Somebody was too close to her left shoulder. Theo shifted and turned her head, finding one of the numerous terminal "helpers" practically in her pocket. This one was not quite as old as Professor Crowley, and portly, the lavender smock with "helper" blazoned across the front stretched too tight over his paunch.

"Confused, dear?" he asked with a smile. He pointed at the exit ramp, off to the left. "Now that you have your baggage, you need to clear the area so that others can find theirs. Would you like me to help you?"

She spotted her case, far up still, riding down the almost exact center of the belt. Theo settled herself like she would for a
menfri'at
lunge.

"No, thank you," she said, keeping one eye on the target. "My mother asked me to get her case while I was getting mine."
Because,
she added grumpily,
Kamele had to say "one last word" to Professor Crowley, like she was never going to see him again, or something.

"Your mother sent you to get two heavy cases
all by yourself
?" The helper, whose name, stitched in red on the left shoulder of his shirt, was "Hieri," demanded, sounding absolutely horrified. Theo blinked.

"They're not heavy," she said, mildly, as her bag crept closer down the crowded belt.

"But you're alone," he insisted.

Her case was almost within snatching distance. Theo rose slowly to the balls of her feet, leaned over and snagged the handle, safely clearing the shoulder of a man so intent on rescuing his own luggage that she doubted he even noticed she was there.

"Be careful!" Hieri yelled, but by that time Theo had put the bag down and had hit the button to telescope the handle. She hooked the two bags together with the magtether, turned—

And found her way blocked by the still-indignant Hieri. She stopped, her body dropping into the first, centering,
menfri'at
form before she had a chance to think.

Wait!
she told herself, deliberately relaxing.
He's only a busybody
.

"I'm not alone," she said carefully. "My mother's in the terminal. I'm supposed to meet her at the Soybean on the first level—" she made a show of looking over his head to the local-time-and-weather display—"right now."

Hieri took a breath so deep his paunch shuddered. "I," he said firmly, "will escort you."

She stared at him, then shrugged. "If you want to, then you need to step back so I can get my bags rolling."

Grimly, he did just that, and Theo stepped out briskly, bags in tow, Hieri puffing at her side.

"Leaving a child alone in the terminal is not safety conscious!" he wheezed.

Theo looked at him. "Do you mean the terminal's not safe?"

He colored and shook his head violently. "No! No, that's not what I mean
at all
. What I mean is that children wander off, get distracted. A mother should always be with her child in this sort of crowded and—and
unregulated
situation!"

"Oh." Theo thought about that as they went down the ramp to the first level. It seemed like the sort of thing Marjene might say—was it only six Standard months ago? She glanced at the infoboard as they passed, noting the date—and noting it again. Six months, indeed!

"I'm not a child," she said to Hieri, which wasn't much of a fib, since tomorrow was her birthday.

Hieri peered at her as if he suspected her of playing an elaborate joke on him. "Have you had your
Gigneri
?" he asked.

Theo's stomach sank.

"No," she admitted. "I haven't."

"Then you're a child, and your mother should take better care of you!" he said triumphantly, and slapped hasty fingers to his lips. "Not that your mother shouldn't take good care of you
after
you've had your
Gigneri
, of course. I only meant—"

"There she is," Theo interrupted, nodding toward Kamele, standing by the info pole to the right of the Soybean kiosk. "You can go help somebody else now."

"A proper escort," Hieri said, sounding like he was quoting out of the helper training manual, "finishes the job properly."

And so it was that Theo came up to Kamele, towing the two cases, and a puffing escort.

"Theo," Kamele said, looking at Hieri in mild astonishment. "Thank you for fetching those! Professor Crowley's friend met him just as they had arranged, so he's well on his—"

"Ma'am!" Hieri interrupted. Kamele raised her eyebrows, and suddenly extended her hand, her smile almost identical to Captain Cho's too-wide "public" smile.

"Helper, thank you for escorting my daughter! I do appreciate it." She let the smile fade a little as Hieri shook her hand, looking slightly bewildered.

"Have you a comment card?" she asked, and he nodded, eagerly producing the flat device from the pocket of his smock.

"Thank you." Kamele took it, tapped in a code, and handed it back, still smiling. "I do
very much
appreciate your trouble," she said again.

"That's all right," Hieri said, blushing and nodding as he slipped the card back into his pocket. "Thank
you
." He cast a stern eye on Theo. "And you, young lady, don't you be afraid to ask for assistance from anybody wearing this shirt." He puffed his chest out proudly. "We're here to
help
!"

With that, he turned around and marched off, head swiveling back and forth, already looking for another victim.

Theo bit her lip and looked down at the floor.

"Well," said Kamele in her normal voice, "that was relatively painless."

Theo sputtered, and heard Kamele laugh, which made her laugh harder. The two of them were still laughing while they got Kamele's case transferred to her, and turned toward—

"Um, Kamele? The light rail station is that way." Theo pointed at the map displayed on the info terminal.

"So it is," her mother said agreeably, but she kept on walking toward the exits for the hotel, mall, and garage.

Theo shrugged and followed. After all, she thought grumpily, it wasn't like Kamele
had
to tell her anything.

The corridor to the mall branched off. Kamele kept walking. So, Theo thought, they were going to the hotel or to the garage. That was information, though she still wondered why.

The crowd had thinned somewhat, but there were still more than enough people around, dressed in bright holiday colors, walking noisily; calling back and forth to each other, the rollers on their luggage clacking across the seams in the floor tiles.

And in the midst of all the motion and noise—a spot of . . .  invisibility.

Theo frowned, turning her head to track what her eye had passed over—

A pilot stood against the far wall, well out of the way of the busy rush of people, but perfectly apparent, if you happened to be looking for him. His hands were folded quietly atop his cane; his stance was balanced, but not quite . . . completely . . . relaxed.

He was watching Kamele, who was oblivious, turning her head this way and that, watching the crowd. He was being so
quiet,
Theo thought in sudden agony; Kamele was never going to see him! Not that Kamele was stupid, or inadvertent, but she wasn't a pilot, and—
Should I say something?
Theo thought frantically. But, if Father wanted them to—

Kamele paused. Chest tight, Theo looked at her face. She was smiling, and a quick glance showed that Father was smiling, too, as he cut across the stream of noisy passengers with such an unhurried, lithe grace that Theo wondered how she could ever have missed the obvious fact.

The pilot who raised me
.

"Good afternoon," he said, and at last he included Theo in his smile.

"Father—" she said, meaning to tell him right then about Cho, and the card, and Melchiza, and
menfri'at,
and—but her throat got tight, and her eyes blurred and anyway Kamele was talking.

"Good afternoon, Jen Sar," she said. Theo thought she meant to sound composed, but her voice was shaking, just a little.

The three of them were an obstruction in the flow of traffic, and while most people were advertent enough to avoid them, they really should start moving again, a point Father made by waving his cane gently and turning to walk with them. Theo moved to the right, so he was between them, and jumped when her bag was clipped by a man who swerved too late. He kept going without a word, apparently oblivious to the contact, even though his case was spinning on its rollers, trying to re-orient itself.

Theo struggled briefly with her own case, muttering the word she had heard Win Ton use under her breath, and got the wheels turned the right way.

"Travel is broadening, I hear," Father murmured, glancing at her with an ironic quirk to his near eyebrow.

Her face heated, but she met his eyes. "I learned lots of things," she said firmly.

"It could hardly have been otherwise. I shall hope to hear that the balance of your acquisitions are somewhat less . . . organic . . ."

Her lips parted.

". . . in the fullness of time," he continued. "At present, I suggest that we make all haste to gain the garage, where by the greatest good fortune I happen to have a car waiting."

Theo eyed him. "We've got too much stuff to fit in your car."

"Do you think so? I had thought we might put the contents into the boot and leave the bags themselves for whoever might care to scavenge them."

"That might work," Theo allowed, dead-pan. "But what about passengers?"

Father pointed a walking half-bow at Kamele. "You mother of course will ride in the passenger's seat, as befits her age and accomplishments."

"And me? In the boot with the dirty laundry?"

"Theo." He looked at her reproachfully. "You, of course, I would lash to the roof."

"That might work," Kamele said from his other side, in a tone that Theo recognized as a duplicate of her own.

"Not," she said to Kamele, across Father, "the way he drives."

"You're right," her mother said thoughtfully. "We'll stop in the mall and buy you a safety helmet."

Theo laughed, and Kamele did.

Father, meanwhile, solemnly used the tip of his cane to press the key for the elevator.

"What," Theo said, staring at the hulking vehicle that took up two whole spaces in the garage, made even taller by the light dome on its roof. It was painted an eye-scorching yellow that couldn't have missed being rated a Hazard by the Safeties, and had two broad black stripes down each side. "Is it?"

"Well you should ask," Father said, opening the boot. "Precisely, it is Andri Manderpon's vintage restored Sunlight Taxicab."

Kamele retracted the handle of her bag; he grabbed the swing-grip before she could, and gave her a small smile. "I agreed to a long list of conditions in order to borrow this vehicle from my good friend Andri, including a guarantee that I would not allow heavy objects to be thrown willy-nilly into the boot."

He swung the bag up and over into the gaping maw, settling it with the barest thump, then turned, one eyebrow raised slightly.

I see you,
Theo signed the greeting one-handed, retracting the handle of her bag with the other.

Father bent and took hold of the strap, swinging Theo's case in to join Kamele's, and lowered the hatch gently.

"Your carriage awaits," he murmured, slipping his hand under Kamele's elbow and guiding her to the passenger side door. He opened it and bowed her inside. "Please fasten the straps. Another condition upon which my friend was adamant." He shut the door and turned, intercepting Theo as she reached for the latch to the back door.

"My hand alone," he murmured, popping the door. He inclined his head. "If you please, Theo. And do fasten the straps."

She shook her head. "I can't see you driving this."

"There are many things that you have not seen, child," he answered. "In, if you please."

She slipped into her seat, and he closed the door behind her. Mindful, she sealed the finicky straps as Father slid into the driver's seat, snapped his own restraints, and turned to Kamele.

"Where shall this humble driver be delighted to take you, Professor?"

Theo held her breath.

"I would be pleased," Kamele said serenely. "If you would take us home. I would like to have tea in the garden."

Theo gasped, and raised her hand to hide the grin. In the front seat, she saw Father's shoulders lose that tiny bit of tension they'd been carrying. He tipped his head.

"It is well, then?" he asked Kamele.

"As well as it can be, considering," she answered and shook her head. "There's a meeting with the Chancellor and the Directors tomorrow evening."

"Yes," Father said. "I have some bit of news regarding that, myself."

"Which we will talk about . . . later," Kamele said.

"Oh, indeed." He leaned forward to touch the starter button. The big car came to life, its motor quieter than Theo had expected, but decidedly louder than the mannered purr of Father's car.

They moved out of the parking space and into the exit lane. Theo leaned back in her seat, thinking.

Father had come to meet them, and brought a car big enough to accommodate them and their luggage. He hadn't been sure, though, until Kamele . . .  But—she must have sent him a text, or—

"Theo," Father's voice broke into her increasingly confused thoughts, "I must beg that you not believe everything you may hear of me."