The Dragon Variation (108 page)

A pin-beam from Sintia, directed to Mr. dea'Gauss?

He queried the item, frowning, found it was in reply to a message sent, and called it up, his memory stirring. Priscilla was from a powerful family, wasn't that it? Mr. dea'Gauss had wished to apprise them of circumstances.

TO DEA'GAUSS CARE OF TRADE VESSEL DUTIFUL PASSAGE. FROM HOUSE MENDOZA CIRCLE RIVER SINTIA. RE QUERY PRISCILLA DELACROIX Y MENDOZA. DAUGHTER OF HOUSE BEARING THAT NAME BORN (LOCAL) YEAR 986, COMMENDED TO GODDESS (LOCAL) YEAR 1002. MESSAGE ENDS.

He stared at the screen. "Commended to the Goddess"?
Dead?
His heart stuttered as he thought of Priscilla dead, then he shook his head sharply.

"Don't be stupid, Shan."

He cleared the screen and demanded Priscilla's filed identifications as well as those requested from Terran census as a matter of mindless form.

The figures appeared side by side on the screen: retinal pattern, fingerprints, blood type, gene map.

The woman who called herself Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza
was
Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza, to a factor of .999.

A Mendoza of Sintia . . . . He remembered the clammy wave of desperation, Priscilla's colorless face, her hand, warding him away: "You mustn't ask . . . ."

But Mr. dea'Gauss had asked, damn him, and the answer returned was worse than none at all.

He had an impulse to destroy the message. But he knew that was childish—and useless. If a reply did not arrive within a reasonable time, Mr. dea'Gauss would merely query again.

Well, she was rather active for a corpse. He sipped coffee, staring at nothing in particular. Save the captain. Save the ship . . . .

"What in space can she have done?"

He sighed and finished his coffee.

The easiest—simplest—explanation was that she had run away. It was not hard to see how Priscilla might have become disillusioned in a rigid societal structure, with all power belonging to the priestesshood.

So, then. The young Priscilla departs; her family declares her dead, for honor's sake. What choice, after all, would they have? The local records reflect the "fact."

But Terran census, above mere local politics, still carries one Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza alive, alive—oh.

Simple. Comforting. Even logical. Except something was missing.

"She could be a criminal," he told the room loudly. "I don't believe it. Lina wouldn't believe it. Mr. dea'Gauss, with no hint of empathy about him, wouldn't believe it. Ah,
hell . . . ."

Local crimes were varied and interesting, as any space traveler could attest. A felony on one planet was conduct that on the next would not cause even the mildest of middle-class grandmothers to blanch.

Ostracism. A crime earning that punishment would have to be extreme.

From world to world there was some variation in the most heinous crimes. Not much.

Kin slaying. Rape. Child stealing. Murder. Mind tampering. Enslavement. Blasphemy.

Murder? She had certainly been ready to wreak mayhem upon Sav Rid Olanek. He retained a vivid memory of that initial interview, with its racket of fury, terror, and exhaustion. Murder was possible.

Kin slaying?

Child stealing?

Mind tampering? Enslavement? She was an empath—and a powerful one. Those crimes, too, were possible.

Blasphemy?

He sighed. Wonderful word, blasphemy. It might mean anything.

An exact definition of her crimes was required—for the ship, and for the clan. Korval owed her much. It was vital that the person to whom the clan was in debt be known—in fullness. Priscilla Mendoza had demonstrated aboard the
Dutiful Passage
a
melant'i
both graceful and strong. She had not, however, come into existence two months ago, much as he might wish it. The captain of the
Passage
could order the necessary actions, or Mr. dea'Gauss could order them, for the good of Korval. In either case, Shan yos'Galan's wishes and desires meant nothing. Necessity existed.

Hating necessity, he tapped in a new sequence and turned to issue instructions to the tower.

"Priscilla?"
Gordy interrupted apologetically. "Morning, Rusty. Priscilla, I was thinking. Could you teach me to be a dragon?"

Rusty glowered; she caught the flicker of his irritation and let it pass.

"Dragons are possible," she admitted, considering the radiance of the boy's anticipation, "but very difficult. Some people work for years and never achieve the Dragon. It requires study and discipline." And the soul of a saint? Lina had been at pains these last busy weeks to demonstrate how empaths conducted themselves in the wide universe.
Melant'i
figured prominently in these lessons. Souls did not.

At her elbow, Gordy sighed. "But
you
know how, don't you?"

Did she? The Dragon was a spell of the Inmost Circle—but Moonhawk's soul was an old one. She had known the way . . . .

Before her mind's eye the pattern rolled forth; the Inner Ear caught the first rasp of leather wings against the air. She took a breath and reversed the pattern.

"Yes," she said, around her own wonder, "I know how. If you truly want to learn, I can begin to teach you. But there's a lot of study between the Tree and the Dragon, Gordy, and no guarantee that you'll be able to master it."

"Could Rusty be a dragon?" Gordy asked, trying perhaps to establish a range.

"I don't
want
to be a dragon," that person announced with spirit. "I like being a radio tech just fine. Don't you have someplace you need to be, kid?"

"Not right now. I've gotta help Ken Rik in twenty minutes. Priscilla, how come not everybody can learn this dragon thing? The Tree's easy."

"So it is." The Tree, the Room Serenity—anyone might learn these. The larger magics? Lina claimed no soul but her own. "The Tree is a very simple spell, Gordy. Only a good thing. The Dragon is both—a weapon and a shield. It's not to be used lightly. You could live a whole life without knowing need great enough to call the Dragon."

He frowned. "You mean the dragon is a good thing
and
a bad thing? That's as goofy as Pallin's river."

"Paradox is powerful magic. The River of Strength is a basic paradox. The Dragon is immensely complex, Gordy. You must learn to balance the good against the evil, the strength that preserves against the fire that consumes. You must be careful that the fire does not consume your will, or sheer strength override your . . . heart. You must not—soar—too close to the sun."

Rusty's uneasiness pierced the wordnet. She pushed away from the table and smiled at them both. "Or be late for your piloting lesson with the captain. Talk with me more later, Gordy. If you're still interested. Rusty, thank you, my friend. I won't see you at prime, I'm afraid. My schedule's blocked out for the next two shifts."

He whistled. "That's some piloting lesson."

"No time with Kayzin Ne'Zame today." She grinned. "A vacation."

Rusty's laughter escorted her to the door.

She reached the shuttlebay
before him. Just.

"Good morning, Priscilla! On time, as usual."

"Good morning, Captain."

He stopped in his tracks, swept a bow that the carryall slung over his shoulder should have made impossible. "Second Mate. Good things find you this day. I perceive that I am in disgrace."

"As if it would matter to you if you were!" she retorted, receiving the first rays of his pattern with something akin to thirst. Two weeks ago she would have wondered at such temerity. It was incredible how quickly she had come to depend on a sense that could not be hers.

"It would matter a great deal," he said, waving her into the bay before him. "Nice day for a shuttle trip, don't you think?"

It was at least reasonable. The
Passage
was currently in normal space, ponderously approaching Dayan in the Irrobi System.

"If, in the judgment of the master pilot, one requires more board-time in shuttle," she said.

"High in the boughs today, aren't you? Practice makes perfect, as Uncle Dick is wont to say. Roll in, Priscilla. Won't do to be late."

He dropped the carryall by the copilot's chair and slid in, his eyes on the board as he adjusted the webbing. Priscilla strapped herself into the pilot's seat, feeling his excitement as if it were her own: sheer schoolboy glee at finagling a day without tutors or overseers, the thrill of some further anticipation riding above his usual pervasive delight. And a glimmer of something else, which she had first taken for his well-leashed nervous energy but now perceived as an edge, almost like worry.

"Board to me, please," he murmured, hands busy over the keys.

Obedient, she shunted control of the ship to the copilot's board and leaned back, watching.

Lights glowed and darkened; chimes, beeps, and buzzes sounded as he ran the checks with a rapidity that would have dizzied any but another pilot. Air was evacuated from the bay; the hatch in the
Passage's
outer hull slid down, and they were tumbling away. Shan laughed softly, executed a swift series of maneuvers, cleared screens and instruments with the same flourish, and reassigned the board to her.

"Screen, please."

She provided it, wary now that it was too late.

The
Dutiful Passage
was ridiculously far away, big as a moon in the bottom left grid. Irrobi's four little worlds hung placidly beneath her.

Shan pointed at the second planet. "I want to be there, please. In—" He paused for a swift silver glance at the boardclock. "—eight hours, I wish to be docking at Swunaket Port. See to it." He spun the chair, snapped the webbing back, and reached for the carryall. At his touch it became a portable screen and desk. Radiating unconcern, he began to work.

Priscilla clamped her jaw on a caustic remark and began the dreary task of determining where exactly they were in relation to where the captain wished them to be.

"Swunaket Port, Captain.
The pilot regrets that we have landed five Standard Minutes beforetime."

He looked up, blinking absently. Since his pattern for the past two hours had been the steady buzz of concentration—as perhaps when one played chess—this ploy failed to deceive her.

"Still steamed, Priscilla?" The absent look faded into a grin.

She willed her lips into a straight line. "It was a
rotten
trick."

"I remember thinking so when my father pulled it on me," he said sympathetically. "Other things, too. Most of them sadly unfilial. You did quite well, by the way, especially when we hit that bit of turbulence—all the lovely hailstones! Really, the local weather has cooperated beautifully!"

The laughter caught her unaware, filling her belly and chest, heart and head, and, finally, the cabin. "You are a dreadful person!"

Shan sighed and began to reassemble the portable desk. "My brother's aunt, my eldest sister—now you. I bow to accumulated wisdom, Priscilla."

"I should think so!" The webbing snapped back into its roller as she stood. "The pilot awaits the captain's further orders."

He set the box aside and stood, stretching with evident enjoyment. "The captain does not require the pilot's services at present, thank you. He does, however, desire the second mate to accompany him to a certain place in the town where business is to be conducted."

She regarded him suspiciously. "What sort of business?"

"Come, come, Priscilla, I'm a Trader. I have to trade
some
time, don't I? To preserve the illusion, if nothing else."

He bowed slightly, ironically. "And I have need of your—countenance—here. I will be walking a proper distance behind you. The address we go to is in Tralutha Siamn. The name of the firm is Fasholt and Daughters." He waved a big hand, ring glinting. "Lead on!"

She stopped in the shadow
of the gate, Shan close behind her, and stared into the street.

Bathed in the butter-yellow light of the smaller sun, women hurried or strolled, singly or in pairs. Behind each, at a respectful three-pace distance, came a man or boy, sometimes two. One elderly woman strolled by on the arm of a younger one, both expensively jeweled and dressed, followed by a train of six boys, each heartbreakingly lovely in sober tunic and slacks.

Priscilla frowned after them. The boys radiated a uniform contentment. Playthings, she thought. Well cared for—perhaps even beloved—pets.

"Well, Priscilla?" His voice was very quiet, with mischief and something more sober spilling from him.

She turned her head to glare. "Am I suppose to own you?"

He nodded. "But don't repine." He felt the fabric of his wide sleeve between two judgmental fingers, tapped the master's ring and the intricate silver belt buckle, and stroked light fingers down a soft-clad thigh. "You obviously pamper me."

She flushed. "I can't think why."

"Unkind, Priscilla. I'm counted not unskilled. Also, I'm a pilot, a mechanic, a good judge of wines, fabrics, spices—"

"And an incurable gabster!" she finished with half-amused vehemence. "If you were mine, I'd have you beaten!"

The slanted brows lifted. "Violence? You might damage the goods, exalted lady. Best to attempt to barter for one less noisy if this one's voice displeases you."

"Don't," she begged him, "tempt me." Back stiff, she turned and marched off.

Head down to hide his grin, Shan followed.

Lomar Fasholt was round-faced
and rumpled; her tunic was a particularly pleasing shade of pink. She smiled widely and dismissed her daughter with a nod as Priscilla entered her office.

"A good day to you, Sister Mendoza," Lomar said heartily, coming around the gleaming thurlwood desk and extending a fragrant hand. Priscilla took it and grinned with relief.

"A good day to you, also, sister."

Lomar laughed gently, her eyes going over Priscilla's shoulder. "Shannie! What a sight for old eyes you are! Have you decided to marry me, after all? Your room stands ready."