Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (10 page)

Nova inclined her head. “Runig’s Rock has taken a toll—that, yes, I had seen. I had thought, perhaps, a fostering, but I cannot find it eligible, Sister! Korval has always been risky to know. To be an ally of the Dragon in these times is to be in active danger.”

“That is so. And, yet, he desires—I will say, he
needs
others of his own temper about him. The loss of his cousins to their duty—that was a blow. He takes refuge in proper behavior, which is . . . exemplary, of course . . .”

“But a child,” Nova said, echoing Michael Golden, “needs to play.”

“Just so. Now, I will tell you one more thing, and then I will exchange places with my nephew in the parlor. Ren Zel has said that Syl Vor
must
come to town.”

This had weight, considering how far and how strange was Ren Zel’s sight. Nova sighed.

“Was it given to him to know
why
?”

Anthora laughed. “When was any gift of the
dramliz
as convenient as that? Allow it to be a measure of his certainty, that he had volunteered to bring Syl Vor to you himself.”

Nova blinked, then chuckled. “Poor man. You must tell me what I may do to make him less chary of me.”

“I think that familiarity will do the deed,” Anthora said placidly. “Only give him a dozen years. Or two.”

* * *

“Hot tea for the Boss an’ her visitor,” Veeno said to Beck, putting the tray down on the side counter. “An’ a glass of juice with some sweet thing if you got it.”

Mike Golden, who was putting his lunch bowl in the sink to be washed, looked ’round, interested.

“That’s another tray?”

Veeno gave him a nod. “Little kid in the waitin’ room. Looks like a cookie’d cheer ’im up.”

Really? That wasn’t bidness like normal. Streeters kept their kids away from the Bosses, and with good reason. Other Bosses did the same, for even better reasons.

“Who’s with the Boss?” he asked Veeno.

“Anthora yos’Galan. On the Undertree List.”

Boss’s sister, that was. Mike nodded. “Who’s the kid?”

Veeno shrugged. “Didn’t say. Figured he rode on her ticket.”

He nodded. “Set up another glass on the cookie tray, willya, Beck? I’ll take it along to the kid. Keep ’im company.”

Beck nodded and looked over her shoulder to Veeno.

“You’d best get back on door. Gavit’ll take the tray in when the pot’s ready.” She slid some seed cookies onto a tray with a beaker of redjuice and a couple plastic cups. “Here go, Mike. Ain’t got no proper sweet for the boy.”

“A plate of your seed cookies? I’d call that a proper sweet!” he said bracingly.

Beck laughed and slapped him on the arm. “You ain’t no little boy, neither. Get outta my kitchen, now!”

“I’m gone,” he said—and was.

* * *

Syl Vor had chosen a chair with a good view of the doorway and the hall beyond without being directly in the line of sight of someone walking down the hall. The chair he chose was too tall for him, but so were all the chairs.

He had put his pack on the floor next to him, first retrieving the tea tin. It was warm in the little parlor, and he thought about taking his jacket off, but he didn’t know the house rules regarding guns. He didn’t want to offend his mother’s staff, but he found that he didn’t care for the idea of being unarmed, either. As a compromise, he unsealed his jacket, making sure that the gun was accessible without necessarily being visible.

That done, he composed himself to wait, tea tin on his knee.

Aunt Anthora had gone ahead to his mother; she had asked him particularly if she might do so, and of course he had said yes. It was a reasonable request, and anyway, he was a child and she outranked him.

Someone passed in the hallway, shadow preceding her—the stern woman who had opened the door to them, shown them to this room, and taken Aunt Anthora to Mother. She was carrying a tea tray, and she did not look into his parlor.

This seemed a rather quiet house, Syl Vor thought—at least, it seemed so
now
. The dozen chairs in this waiting parlor might sometimes be full of people wanting to see his mother, who was
Boss Nova
, and who had agreed to solve for those of Surebleak who had no
delm
to solve for them.

He wasn’t
exactly
sure how it had fallen to those of Korval to solve for—well, for all the world. His tutor, unforthcoming as she usually was on matters of Surebleak, had been adamant upon this point—
no one
native to Surebleak belonged to a clan or had anyone but themselves to solve for them, or remind them of the forms, or—or to guard their sleep so that enemies did not fall on them unaware.

That
, in Syl Vor’s opinion, was a very bad state of affairs and right it had been of Cousin Pat Rin—for it was Cousin Pat Rin who had brought this work to the clan—to take Surebleak in hand.

Except . . . Cousin Pat Rin had perhaps not
quite
understood how much solving was needed. Maybe, Syl Vor thought, a few of the Surebleak people could be taught to solve, too, and then his mother would not be too busy to come home.

Another shadow moved in the hall, accompanied by firm steps. Not his mother nor Aunt Anthora, nor the lady who had opened to them.

Syl Vor sat up straighter in his chair and slid his gun hand down his thigh.

The steps slowed, the shadow wavered and vanished behind a dark-haired man carrying a tray. He gave Syl Vor a smile and a nod.

“Afternoon. Ms. Veeno thought you might like a snack an’ some company.”

Syl Vor relaxed, for here was no threat, but merely the courtesy of the house.

“Thank you,” he said, in his careful Terran. “A glass of juice would be most welcome.” He scooched forward in the chair until he could slide off the edge and onto his feet. The edge of his jacket caught on the wood and dragged open. He snatched it closed with a quick look, but the man was busy with the tray.

He put the tea tin on the chair seat and approached the table.

“I am Syl Vor yos’Galan,” he said, courteous and proper, as Terran custom did not consider clan affiliation to be part of one’s name.

The man looked up, brown eyes bright. “Silver, is it?” he said interestedly. “Now there’s a pairing you don’t get every day. I’m Golden myself. Mike Golden.”

Syl Vor blinked, the Terran words for a moment swirling out of sense—and then he blinked again, rehearing what the man had said, seeing the hint of a smile at the edge of the big mouth.

“Was that a joke?” he asked sternly.

The smile got wider. “Quicker’n your ma, there,” he said. “Yep, it was; I’m a sucker for a joke, myself.”

“It was not a very
good
joke,” Syl Vor told him. “My name is not
silver
. Silver is a trade metal.”

“Well, so’s gold, last I knew about it. Now, something else you’ll want to know is I’m your ma’s ’hand, which means I got her back—an’ yours, too. So favor me by puttin’ the safety on that pistol.”

Oh. Mike Golden had quick eyes.

“The safety is on,” Syl Vor told him. “I wanted the gun close.”

“Can’t fault a man for wantin’ his protection to hand. Your ma, she don’t like for there to be disorder in the house, and we try to keep it like she wants. Mostly, we keep it
zackly
like she wants, no worries. Sometimes things slip, though, so it’s good to be prepared.” He picked up the beaker of redjuice.

“You know about town hospitality?” he asked.

Syl Vor frowned. “No . . . ?”

Mike Golden nodded. “Here’s how we do it. I’m gonna pour both glasses from this same jug here, see? An’ then I’m gonna drink first, to show there’s nothing wrong with the juice. Then I’ll have a bite outta one of Beck’s special cookies. After that’s finished with, an’ assuming I don’t fall down, then you can go ahead and drink, and have as many cookies as you want. Got that?”

Syl Vor considered the form, chewing his lip. It was not dissimilar, he thought, to one of the Visiting Rules Grandaunt had taught him from the Code.

“Is this the rule for all houses,” he asked, “or this house only?”

Mike Golden smiled as if he had been particularly clever. “Sharp as a tack,” he said. “That’s the rule for all Surebleak houses, Silver. If somebody wants you to drink, and they ain’t doing the same, or if they bring you a glass already full from somewhere else—don’t you touch it, and get outta there as fast as you can.”

Yes,
very
like that particular Visiting Rule. Syl Vor inclined his head. “I understand. Thank you, Mr. Golden.”

“Mike—you call me Mike. Now, here.”

He poured juice into a glass, raised it and took a long draught. Then he picked up a cookie and bit into it with evident enjoyment. Syl Vor waited for the count of twelve. Mike Golden did not fall down.

“Now, you,” he said, and filled the second glass with redjuice.

Syl Vor drank with satisfaction.

“That is good,” he said. “Boss Sherton sends to us redjuice at House.” He frowned at his error, and looked up into the man’s face. “Your pardon. I mean to say that Boss Sherton
sends the House
redjuice.”

“That’s okay,” Mike Golden said. “I gotcher meaning.”

“Yes, but I must speak properly.”

“My grandma Dorrie used to say the same thing to me, then give me a swat upside the head so I’d remember it.” Mike Golden bit into his cookie and gave Syl Vor a sideways look. “Maybe you got a grandma yourself?”

“I have a grandaunt,” Syl Vor said. “Her method is . . . similar.”

Mike Golden laughed. “I bet it is. So, if you don’t mind my askin’, what brings you to town?”

The cookies were very good. Syl Vor chose a second one.

“I must talk to my mother about . . . having work. Except for the twins—and they are
babies
!—I am the only one who has no work. I thought, there is so much, here in the town, that my mother and—that my mother comes home very seldom. If I could help her, then she could come home more often, and I would be . . . of use.”

Mike Golden blinked.

“Of use—well, sure. We all wanna be of use. An’ y’know—I got a thought. Let me lay it out for you and you see what you think . . .”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kezzi and Malda raced up the ramp to the green garden, the little dog yapping with excitement when she reached into her pocket and pulled out his ball. Laughing, she threw it toward the service apron, not into the garden. The last time Memit had caught them playing in the garden, she had boxed Kezzi’s ears, and spoken so sternly to Malda that he had crouched at her feet with his ears wilted and his nose between his front paws. Worse, Memit had then claimed Kezzi for a week of extra work, weeding, trimming back, and digging.

Normally, Kezzi liked taking her work-turn in the garden. That week, though, Memit had a Teaching to deliver, and she went at it with such a will that Kezzi’s back ached for days after the work was done, and her fingers were so stiff she could barely hold the deck, much less spread a fan. Then Vylet had been angry with her, and Kezzi had gone to visit the
luthia
, who gave her a liniment, and asked what she had learned.

“I learned not to throw Malda’s ball in the garden when Memit is watching,” she had answered bitterly.

The
luthia
had laughed and said, “Well, that is one thing! Dream on it, little sister, and come to me on the morning after the next one. We will drink tea together.”

That had been how she had become Silain’s student, so there was some good out of Memit’s spite.

And Kezzi took care not to throw Malda’s ball in the garden, ever again.

She made the top of the ramp, and here was Malda trotting proudly toward her, head high and stubby tail wagging, the blue ball in his mouth.

“Bold Malda!” Kezzi cried. “Swift Malda! Bring it, now, and make a gift.”

The little dog pranced up to her, bowed, and placed the ball between Kezzi’s feet.

“Well done,” she said, rubbing his ears. She picked up the ball, and he leapt high into the air, ran three steps out, spun in a tight circle, and rose onto his hind legs with a yip that urged her to
throw
.

Throw she did, and ran after she had thrown, so that by the time they had raced the length of the service apron three times, she and Malda were panting alike.

“One more,” she said, “then we must find Vylet.”

She picked up the ball and threw with more strength than she had intended. The ball bounced once and disappeared into the mouth of a service tunnel, Malda in hot pursuit.

“Malda!” Kezzi pelted after, stopping at the edge of the tunnel and peering into the blackness beyond.
That
was strange—twice strange. Not only were the tunnels usually closed with flexwire, but they were lit by the glow strips running down the middle of the floor and ceiling. The strips in this tunnel were as black as the walls.

“Malda!” she called again, reaching into her pocket. She heard a scrabbling sound, like a dog’s claws on the stone flooring.

Her fingers found the cool cylinder of the flash; she pulled it out and pressed the stud, waking a beam of light.

It was only a small light against a large darkness. Still, it preceded Kezzi by three steps, so she went carefully forward.

The scrabbling came again.

Kezzi stopped and snapped her fingers. “Malda! Come!”

The answer to this was a yip, and a silence long enough for Kezzi to walk nine more steps into the tunnel. She bit her lip. To leave Malda in the tunnel—that she could not do. There were rats in the tunnels, and other strange creatures, who would find one small dog just good enough for dinner.

Thinking of those other creatures, she was afraid—and that she mustn’t be. To bring Malda back to her, she had to sound strong and stern, like she was a dog so big Malda would think of nothing but doing exactly what that big dog wanted him to do. Also, she needed to be so big and so strong that those other creatures would think very hard about showing themselves.

Kezzi took a deep breath, held it—and heard the scrabbling again, louder and faster this time, moving not down the tunnel—

But up.

She swung to the side, keeping the light focused on the tunnel floor. The noise grew louder, and suddenly through the little splinter of light raced a low grey animal pursued by a black-and-tan dog not much larger.