Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (2 page)

Decision taken, he turned his face from the spaceport, and instead moved further into the city, striking for the abandoned warehouse belt.

He would hide. And, as before, he would survive.

CHAPTER THREE

“When will you return to us?”

Grandaunt Kareen would have approved his form just there, Syl Vor thought. He had framed the question in proper style—anticipating the joyful return of favored kin. If he had not minded his lessons, he might have said, “How long will you be away?”—and that would have been cruel, to burden his cousin with his dismay, when she had duty before her.

He didn’t wish to be cruel to Padi—he liked Padi—and so he took care with his words. His eyes did sting, a little, but he blinked hard, and took a deep breath. He wasn’t a baby. And, besides, if he cried, Padi would be distressed, and it was his duty to send her to hers with no shadow on her heart.

He had learned a great deal about duty from Grandaunt Kareen. They all had.

“Well,” Padi said now, in answer to his question. “It’s an adjusted route that we’re testing. Father said to plan on half a Standard, but to pack for a whole.”

Padi’s father was Uncle Shan—Master Trader yos’Galan. Padi would of course be the clan’s master trader when she was older, so she had a great deal to learn. And, Syl Vor had heard her say to Quin that she was behind in her lessons—as they all were—because of Plan B.

Plan B was over now, and they—Padi and Quin and Syl Vor and the twins; Grandfather and Grandaunt—had been brought from the sanctuary at Runig’s Rock. They had all come . . . well, not to their very
own
home, Trealla Fantrol, where the yos’Galans had lived forever. Trealla Fantrol was gone. Uncle Shan had explained it—that the clan could only bring one house and of course they had to bring the Tree, so it was Jelaza Kazone that had come to Surebleak, and sheltered all the clan.

Just like olden times, said Uncle Shan.

So, now they were safe back with kin at Jelaza Kazone, and it was right and proper that they take up their usual training and the duties that Plan B had interrupted.

Quin had only a few days ago been fetched down to Blair Road, and his father’s city house. Quin was to learn to be a Boss, that’s what Syl Vor had heard Grandfather Luken say. Bosses were in a “leadership capacity peculiar to the culture of this new homeworld”—that much Syl Vor knew. He hadn’t been able to get anything more useful than that out of his tutor. Yet.

“You’ll be quite the expert on Surebleak by the time I come back,” Padi said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a piece of string. “I’ll depend on you to bring me up to line.”

She wove the string casually between her fingers, until her hand was encompassed by what appeared to be an edifice of space and twine. Smiling, she held it out to him.

Syl Vor hesitated, wondering if he should take offense, while the string and its pattern was held temptingly before him. No, he decided, Padi was only doing
her
duty, as his elder. The string game was pilot-play; it taught . . . well, he wasn’t exactly sure what it taught, but he
was
sure that he knew less about it than Padi did, and if he wished, when he was older, to be a pilot of Korval—which he very much did—then he had better learn everything she knew.

He therefore studied the pattern carefully before slipping his fingers along two joint sections, and pulling the whole structure from her hands onto his.

The pattern was changed in the transfer, as it should be. Syl Vor looked at it anxiously, but so far as he could see it was true, without tangles, knots or twists.

Padi grinned and leaned forward in her turn, pinching a high point and a low—which was a surprise. If it had been Syl Vor’s turn to twist the pattern, he would have chosen . . .

“There!” Padi said with satisfaction. “
Now
what will you do?”

Syl Vor blinked at the newly complex weaving of string and wondered the same thing. Frowning, he studied it for a long moment, seeing nothing but a dense tapestry of line and space, complete in itself, and resistant to manipulation.

Suddenly, the pattern seemed to come into sharper focus and Syl Vor saw a pair of junction points—one deep toward center; the other only one space from the pattern’s border. Boldly, he pinched each, lifted . . . pulled—and watched in dismay as the dense weaving unraveled into a limp double loop sagging around his fingers.

Syl Vor bit his lip, expecting Padi’s ready laughter, but—

“Forgive me, Cousin,” she said, sounding formal and grown-up. He looked up at her in surprise. “I twisted the thread during my transfer, and so gave you a faulty beginning.”

“It was awfully complex,” he said, to make her feel better.

She smiled and reached out to unwind the sloppy loops from his fingers.

“It was, wasn’t it?” she said, coiling the string and putting it back in her pocket. “Let that be a lesson to us both, then: Too much complexity ruins the game.”

* * *

Later, after he’d gone down with Padi to the little parlor, where tall Uncle Shan was waiting, and had from each of them a kiss . . .

After he’d watched their car go down the drive, between the browning lawns, and walked slowly back to the nursery, to meet his math tutor . . .

After he’d had his dinner with Mrs. pel’Esla, and after Cousin Anthora had come to the nursery to visit—not him, of course, but the twins, though she kindly stopped for a game of skittles . . .

After he’d washed behind his ears, said his own good-nights to Shindi and Mik; and slid into bed, remembering to thank Mrs. pel’Esla for her service this day . . .

And after he’d lain awake for a little while, listening to the soft noises that Mrs. pel’Esla made as she put things to rights in the common room; wishing that he was in the dormitory he had shared with his cousins at Runig’s Rock, which Grandaunt would doubtless tell him was a great piece of nonsense . . .

After he had not cried—or only a little—because he was all alone—which of course he couldn’t be, safe in-House and under Tree, surrounded by kin—he slid into a doze, remembering how it had been, at the Rock.

They’d had lessons, of course—Grandfather Luken and Grandaunt Kareen had been very strict about lessons. Just because they were in hiding from Korval’s enemies, Grandaunt had said often, was no reason to descend into savagery.

They’d had math; history, planetary and galactic; languages, the High Tongue, Trade, Terran, and hand-talk; systems-and-repair; dance;
melant’i
drills; weapon lore and practice.

His favorites had been weapon lore and dance, though he wasn’t nearly as proficient as Quin and Padi. Grandfather had said he did well in keeping up with the others, who were, after all, so much older, and more advanced in their studies.

That made him feel good.

Practice was hardest. They had to pretend, which should have been easy, but the things they pretended—that Korval’s enemies had found them, there in the fastness of the Rock, and that they had to run away, to the ship that Quin and Padi would pilot. There was the order of retreat—Quin leading, because he was First Board, then Syl Vor, carrying the twins in their special basket, and Padi covering them both. That was right: the pilot, who kept the ship safe; then the passengers, who were under the pilot’s care; then copilot, guarding pilot and ship.

There was nothing scary about pretending that—
every
body knew the order of ship precedence.

The scary part though—behind them would come Grandfather and Grandaunt, delaying the enemy in any way they could, so that the pilots and Syl Vor with the babies had time to gain the ship.

They pretended that Grandfather . . . fell, and they . . . they pretended to leave him, the pilots sealing the hatch behind Grandaunt Kareen. They pretended that Grandaunt was lost. They pretended that neither elder gained the hatch by the time the pilots’ count was done, and the greatest good for ship and folk came down to Quin’s sole choice . . .

One of the twins—Mik, by the little catch in the voice—was beginning a complaint. Syl Vor stirred, hoping he hadn’t pulled the webbing too tight, and then the sound, unmistakable, of the hatch sealing tight—

Caught in the web of memory, Syl Vor choked, crying out, “Wait!” and that woke him to his own bed, where he lay, heart roaring in his ears, and his cheeks wet with tears.

He concentrated like Padi had taught him—concentrated on breathing slow and deep. It was hard, but he kept at it until he was limp beneath the blankets, and told himself that it was pretend—that it had
always
been pretend; that Grandaunt and Grandfather were safe, just as he was, and the babies his charges; and Quin, and Padi . . .

No longer deafened by his own heartbeat, Syl Vor heard a small sound, and knew that part of his dreaming had been real.

Quietly, he slipped out of bed and ghosted across the dark common room, to the little alcove where the twins slept. Syl Vor peered ’round the corner. A night-dim on the corner table gave the room a faint, pearly glow. Mrs. pel’Esla, usually to hand, was at this moment absent. Doubtless, she had not gone far, and would return quickly to comfort Mik—that was no longer his job. No less a personage than his mother had said that he might put the order of Runig’s Rock behind him; that such arrangements were not required within the clanhouse. Still, it was not so easy to do as to say. They had been his to keep safe; his to decide for, if it came to such measures. They were his cousins; he was elder to them—surely
that
still held, even in-House?

Mik complained again, fretfully louder. If he kept up like that, he would wake Shindi, and then everyone would know. A tale-teller’s voice, had Shindi. At least, so Grandfather said.

Syl Vor slipped closer to the little bed, and peered over the low rail. Mik was asleep, but muttering, likely caught in some dream of his own. Carefully, Syl Vor stroked the soft cheek, murmuring, like he used to do at the Rock, when they were pretending and it was his job to keep them quiet.

Mik’s eyelashes fluttered, his small body tensing toward wakefulness.

“Mik, sweet one, sleep, brave child,” Syl Vor whispered, which were the words he had learned from Grandfather. He moved his hand to smoothe the rumpled dark hair.

Mik sighed, his body relaxing back to sleep.

Syl Vor continued to murmur, his hand against his cousin’s cheek, only a little longer, to be certain—and then looked up, hearing a step in the larger room outside.

In a moment, Mrs. pel’Esla arrived, murmuring crossly, “. . . like to know how that cat—” She cut her complaint off at the sight of Syl Vor leaning over the crib, and sighed.

“Are you wakeful, child?”

“I heard Mik fretting,” he said, which was true, even as it sidestepped her question. “I was worried, in case he should wake Shindi.”

“And woe to us all, in that case,” Mrs. pel’Esla said. She stepped to the crib and looked in.

“You have a good touch with your cousins,” she said. “They honor you.”

Syl Vor felt warmed. “I did my best to take care of them.”

“That you did—and they remember it,” the nurse said. “Now, though, you must care for yourself. Can you find your bed in the dark? Would you like some hot milk to help you sleep?”

“It’s not so dark,” Syl Vor told her, and, “No, thank you.”

“Then I shall again bid you good-night, young Syl Vor,” Mrs. pel’Esla said. “I will look in on you after I settle this young rogue, in case you change your mind, about the milk.”

“Thank you,” Syl Vor said, and ran his finger down Mik’s cheek one more time before he left the alcove and went back to his empty room.

. . . which was not so empty, after all.

There, curled among the blankets, was a rangy orange cat with white feet. She looked up when Syl Vor entered—and squinted her eyes in a cat smile.

Syl Vor pressed his hand against his mouth to keep from laughing.

“Eztina, you know Mrs. pel’Esla doesn’t like you here at night.”

The cat yawned, and Syl Vor bit his lip, concentrating very hard on not laughing as he climbed into bed and scooched under those blankets not held down by cat.

He curled around on his side and closed his eyes, Eztina tucked into the curve of his belly, and he flicked a corner of the coverlet over her. The cat began to purr, and Syl Vor rode that pleasant sound into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

It could not be expected that the Bedel would long submit to meekness—so said Silain the
luthia
to Alosha the headman.

The headman sighed to hear it, and fingered his pipe from his belt, and his smoke-pouch from his vest pocket.

“In truth, we were made to wander, and wander, that we will.”

Kezzi, sitting with Malda at some little distance from the
luthia
’s hearth recognized the line from one of the Truing Songs. The next line rose unbidden to her mind, and she hastily pushed it aside. She was supposed to be listening, not remembering!

“Has wandering brought sorrow,” Silain asked, “or joy?”

“Neither, as I parse it,” Alosha said, filling his pipe and tamping the leaf down with his thumb. “Whatever dispute exists between the Folk of the Tree and those who oppose them has flowed past us. The new order imposed upon the streets by the
kompani
of Bosses likewise flows past the Bedel, barely dampening our boots.”

He snapped a firestick with the hand not occupied with his pipe, held the flame to the bowl and drew. Kezzi smelled bark and cherry as the smoke wafted past, and smiled.

“We have been twice fortunate,” the headman continued, when the pipe was going to his satisfaction. “Will we be three times unfortunate?”

Kezzi held her breath, and put her hand flat on Malda’s side as she leaned forward to hear better. Any question of the
kompani
’s fortune was serious—and doubly so when it came from the headman, who held their future in his hands.

Silence from the
luthia
while she considered this weighty question. Alosha smoked his pipe, and kept his own silence.

Kezzi had counted to nine, taking and exhaling a deep breath between each number, when at last Silain spoke.