The Dragon Variation (60 page)

Startled, she looked up and met a pair of sober black eyes.

"A pilot keeps herself fit," she said, quoting from the guild-book.

Daav inclined his head. "That," he agreed quietly. "Also it is the duty of the copilot to ensure the pilot's health—and the care of a comrade to answer need with aid."

"I see." She put the teacup back on the broad arm of the chair and reached for the muffin. "I have been—long aside—from the world," she said, breaking the cake open and breathing in the cheesy aroma. "While I eat, will you tell me if you have formed any notion of how best to test the navcomp?"

"Several," he said readily, "but you must tell me how much time you may spend."

Aelliana glanced at the board clock and back to her copilot. "Twelve hours."

"Ah," he said with a smile, "in that wise . . ."

A statistically significant number of Scouts are reported
eklykt'i
—unreturned—every Standard Year. While some undoubtedly fall prey to the omnipresent dangers of their duty, there is reason to believe that most have simply found a world that suits them better than the homeworld and have decided to stay.
There are those who argue that Scouts who are
eklykt'i
are the most successful Scouts of all.

—Excerpted from "All About the Liaden Scouts"
 

LIAD HUNG IN HER THIRD screen,
a glowing wizard's-ball caught fast in a thick net of traffic. Outyards Four, Five and Three, moored to the edge of the net, also showed, gratifyingly distant. All that remained between
Ride the Luck
and the beginning of Jump space was the hailing beacon—and Scout Station.

Aelliana sighed.

"Tired, pilot?"

"Not at all," she returned, spinning in her chair to meet her copilot's smile. "I was merely thinking how—satisfying—it would be to continue our route out."

"Eminently satisfying," Daav said, his smile going a little crooked, "and very tempting. Liad does grate upon one, from time to time." He extended the hand which bore the mark of the ring he did not wear and locked his board.

Aelliana bit her lip, leaning over to lock her own board. "Have you been—retired—very long?" she asked, which was none of her concern at all.

"Six years," Daav answered, as if it had been an entirely appropriate question. "I had been active for ten."

"Clonak—Clonak calls you captain," she told him, as if this might have someway escaped his notice.

Daav laughed. "Well, and Clonak's an odd creature, as even those who love him must own. It happens I had been his team leader, though I barely had such courtesy from him then. And," he added kindly, "before you sprain your tongue in an attempt not to ask the next perfectly logical question: Scout Captain, with a specialty in Cultural Genetics."

Swiftly, she lifted her eyes to his. "I beg your pardon," she said, feeling heat wash along her cheeks. "I had been taught it impolite to inquire of—of—" She staggered to a halt, for "stranger," the word she had been about to utter, did not fit the cipher; nor did "non-kin," her other choice, strike closer. Indeed, she was more likely to receive care and accurate data from stranger-Daav than ever she might of Ran Eld.

"All by the Code and very proper in its place," Daav said, coming smoothly to his feet. "The so-called polite world being its place. You have every right to ask of me, Aelliana. I am your copilot and your comrade. It is imperative that you trust me, as I might well be required to make a decision in your name. If you cannot trust me to act as you would, you had best know it quickly."

She stared up at him for a long moment before rising with a sigh. "I venture to say that you would not in any case act as I would," she said slowly. "I would far rather trust your judgment than my own."

"Then you are no pilot."

She flinched, snapped straight, hands fisted at her sides. "I am a pilot!" she cried, as if it were wrenched from the core of her. "I will master Jump within the year!"

Daav lifted an eyebrow. "If you will," he said with a cool and distant courtesy that put her forcefully in mind of Lady pel'Rula. "I must allow, however, that I have never known a Jump pilot who would place another's judgment above her own in any matter of her ship."

She glared, her own voice echoing in memory's ear:
I do not wish to hear that any of my students has died stupidly . . .

She drew a careful breath.

"Master Pilot," she said. Daav inclined his head.

"Pilot?"

"I strive to be an apt pupil," Aelliana said formally, and bowed as one of her students might bow to her: Respect and honor to the instructor. "I have been many years aside the world. This information is not offered to excuse ineptitude, but to aid the instructor's judgment. It may be I am unworthy of the instructor's notice. Certainly, I have much to learn."

"Though nothing to learn at all in the science of delivering a devastating setdown!" Both of Daav's eyebrows were up. He flung out that curiously unringed hand, fingers slightly curled. "Cry friends, Aelliana, do! I swear not to come the lordling."

She blinked at him, baffled. "But—you are entirely correct," she stammered. "I must learn all a pilot's
melant'i
, and that quickly. Else how shall it be when I am beyond Liaden space and none but myself to consult? I read of all manner of strange custom in out-space. When my ship and myself are ranged against such and the decision must always be first to preserve the ship—" She slammed to a stop, heart pounding.

"Your ship is your life," Daav said softly, and with the air of quoting someone.

"Yes." She let out a shaky breath. "Yes, exactly so."

"Which is why the chel'Mara is a fool." He smiled, tipping his head so the silver earring spun sparkling in the cabin's light. "Shall you cry friends, Aelliana, or am I in blackest disgrace?" The long fingers beckoned gently.

She hesitated, feeling the familiar clutch of fear in the pit of her belly. A test . . . And once again, she thought, clammy fingers twisting together as she stared at that beckoning hand, Daav was right. Who was she to claim for herself the courage necessary to leave clan, kin and homeworld—the boldness to survive among strange custom—when she dared not even reach out her hand to touch the hand of her comrade?

It was difficult. To her screaming, hard-won instincts, it required an entire day to step closer, a twelveday to raise her hand, another to hold it forth, a entire
relumma
to close her fingers around his and feel the warm, answering pressure, by the end of which quarter-year she was trembling in every muscle and her legs barely firm enough to hold her.

"Reprieved!" Daav's voice sounded gaily. He pivoted smoothly, drawing her with him as he moved across the chamber. "I expect you'd like some lunch before we proceed."

"Lunch?" Aelliana repeated. She shook herself and drew a ragged breath, noting with something like panic that she was clutching Daav's hand with a force that hurt her own. "Thank you, but I—don't believe I am hungry."

"Yes," he said placidly, "I know."

It was not until he had seated her in the tiny canteen and gently reclaimed his hand in order to ply the menuboard that a certain ominous thought struck her.

"Daav?"

He turned his head. "Yes."

"I—" she stared down at her tightly-folded hands, her eyes following the intricacies of the puzzle ring, round and round. She bit her lip. "Are you a Healer?"

"Ah." He left the board and leaned across the little table, laying one hand over both of hers. He smiled as her eyes leapt to meet his.

"My empathy rating is—high," he said softly, "but I am not a Healer." He looked closely into her eyes, his own serious. "Shall I fetch you a Healer, Aelliana?"

It was an appropriate offer, from a comrade. Aelliana blinked against tears, tore her gaze away.

"Thank you, no. It is—I believe it is—too late—by many—years. I had only wondered—it seemed you are so—"

"Meddlesome," Daav said lightly, standing away with a smile. "It's a sad case, but—Scouts, you know. Shall you have soup with your salad or merely a roll?"

She stared at his back, torn between frustration and laughter. "Only a roll, of your goodness."

There was, of course, no hope that she would merely receive a roll and a cup of tea, and it was with no real surprise that Aelliana sat some moments later considering a rather large salad, augmented by cheese and breadstick.

Daav, who was having soup with his own salad, dug in with a will. Aelliana picked up her tongs.

"How did you learn the silent tongue?"

Aelliana glanced up from her all-but-empty plate with a blink.

"I teach Scouts," she said, with a slight smile, "and Scout minds—as you must know!—are very often bent on mischief. I learned it for survival, through observation." She moved her shoulders, denying his look of admiration. "When I finally came to realize that the finger-flickers among the class must be a language of some kind, it was only a short step to reading it—which is the extent of my skill."

"You've never tried to speak so yourself?"

"Oh, no," she said, glancing down at her plate and fingering her tongs. "I would be hopelessly clumsy, you know."

"Having observed you at a piloting board, not to mention deep in a game of bowli ball," Daav said somewhat dryly, "I know nothing of the kind. It's a useful language—and staggeringly simple to learn. Much easier than Terran."

"Which I must also master." Aelliana sighed, shoulders slumping. To capture first class, to become proficient in Terran, to acquire tolerance of exotic custom, to earn both funds and recommendations, all the while keeping ship and comrades hidden safe from Ran Eld's eye—

"Have you only a year?" Daav asked and she started, so closely did he echo her thoughts, then relaxed, lips curving upward.

"Very high," she commented, and moved her shoulders. "A year it must be. It may be necessary to give over the seminar."

"Ah, no, that would be cruelty. If Liad is to lose you altogether, at least allow another class of Scouts the benefit of your knowledge."

Extremely high in the empathy range,
Aelliana thought, with sudden understanding.
And augmented by all a Scout's observational skills. Small wonder he finds the polite world grates on him.
She raised her eyes.

"Do you know anything of a world called Desolate?"

"Yes, and none of it good," Daav said bluntly. "If that is your destination, and the hope of your study, you would do far better to remain on Liad."

"I had thought—some time ago—that I might go there," she said. "Before
Ride the Luck
. Plans have—altered. But I had wondered."

"Hah." Daav finished off his tea and set the cup aside. "The World Room at Scout Academy is what you want. Apply to the commander for use-time."

She hesitated. "Do you think—"

"Your name is cantra at Academy, Aelliana," Daav said, pushing back his chair and gathering up the remains of his meal. "Jon had told you so."

"So he had." She rose, gathered up her leavings and fed them to the disposer before turning back to her tall copilot.

"I wonder," that gentleman said with the easy air she was beginning to recognize with trepidation, "if you might wish to have a taste of Jump."

Her heart leaped, the calculations running, quicksilver, in her head. "The gravity well . . ."

"A serious problem, were we to attempt full Jump. I'm suggesting Little Jump, or Smuggler's Ace, as my piloting instructor was used to call it. We barely phase out, skim atop hyperspace and return. In such a venture, the gravity well—"

"The gravity well acts as anchor and catalyst—I see!" Aelliana interrupted, the figures flowing, bright and perfect, before her mind's eye. She looked hungrily into Daav's face.

"Can we . . ."

"Let us call Scout Station and clear it with them. However—no disgrace of your skill!—I will run first board."

"Yes, of course," said Aelliana, and almost ran back to the pilot's chamber.

SCOUT STATION GAVE ITS aye
with cheery unsurprise, recommending them to "enjoy the bounce". Daav grinned and closed the outline—and then the mandatory open line.

"No open lines in Jump", he murmured, fingers dancing along his instruments. "Your board to me, if you please."

She assigned it with a pang, sighing as her screens went dark.

"Patience, child," he chided, and before Aelliana could protest such address, her screens were live again, board-lights winking bright.

"Your board is slaved to mine. Every toggle I trip, every bit of data I feed in—everything will be reflected there, for your interest. Well enough?"

For her most intense interest! "Well enough," she agreed, eyes hungry on the tell-tales.

Daav laughed. Across Aelliana's board lights brightened, darkened, flared, flicked; data strings like a river at thaw stormed across the pilot's net; navcomp held steady, steady, perfect to five digits. Scout Station passed from screen three to four to five, outline stretched by velocity, until it shot off the edge of screen seven and vanished as the warning beacon flowed into screen one, heading for two—

The ship flinched, the screens went gray. Navcomp beeped and took itself off-line.

"Jump achieved." Daav's voice was calm as always, but Aelliana thought she detected a thread of sheer, savage joy in that smooth weaving.

At the bottom right corner of prime screen, red digits ticked time. One-minute-six, one-minute-nine, one-minute-twelve—The lights jigged manic across the board, data hurtled—one-minute-fifteen—

Navcomp sang and came alive; ship's eyes opened, showing the diminished, ensnared globe of the homeworld. Aelliana bit back something woefully near a curse, hand moving to demand elucidation from maincomp. Nothing happened, of course, she was still slaved to the master board.

"But—"

"Smuggler's Ace, recall it?" He wasn't even trying to hide his exuberance. He grinned like a boy and opened the mandatory line with a flourish, letting in all the babble of the workaday universe.

"How can we be—be—" She slammed to a halt, aware that she was not entirely certain where they were, excepting beyond range of Port and Tower, beyond Scout Station, beyond the beacon—