Fledgling-ARC

A boy not much older than she was held out a piece of hard copy to the woman. "Student reassignment, Instructor," he said cheerfully.

"Reassignment?" She frowned as she took the hard copy – and frowned again as she glanced down.

The messenger departed, whistling. Instructor Tathery turned back, paper upheld.

"Theo Waitley," she said.

Pilot Arman extended a hand. "I will take care of it," he said coolly. "Theo Waitley has been transferred into my class. If you should receive any other administrative orders regarding her, please send them to me. Thank you, Instructor."

"Sir," she whispered, and fled.

Theo stood where she was, unwilling to relax, uncertain what she should do next. This man was Security, but – who was he? She didn't doubt his claim of being a pilot; in fact, he was more... blatantly so than any other pilot she knew. His stance was not only ready, it was aggressive.

"Do I disquiet you, Pilot Waitley?" Her new instructor had broken the security seal on the message, glanced at it briefly, refolded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

"Pilot Waitley?" he said. "There is a question in play."

"Yes, sir," she said, and forced herself to meet those very blue eyes. "You look like you're ready to begin dancing."

"I see. With whom have you been dancing, Pilot?"

Theo cleared her throat. "Friends from the Vashtara. I'm not a pilot, sir."

"Plainly, you have not gone far in your coursework, however, we Melchizans value pilots, even those just beginning flight, and we accord them the respect which is their due. You have been transferred to the pilots' section at Instructor Tathery's request. I have reviewed the classroom record of your dance and agree that you do not belong among... shall we say the passengers? Your performance in mathematics is low, but not unreasonably so. You will be assigned a tutor and remedial work." He took a breath, and... relaxed in a move very nearly a dance in itself. Abruptly, he was only a man in a blue shirt, preparing to walk on.

Theo felt her muscles loosen, like she had somehow internalized the pattern of relaxation she had just seen. She took a step back and shook her hands, fingers pointing loosely at the floor, releasing the energy she had drawn.

"Very good." Pilot Arman smiled, coolly, and nodded toward the door. "Come with me, please, Pilot."

They walked down the empty corridor briskly, but without haste. Pilot Arman wasn't interested in talking to her, and Theo was just as happy to pursue her own thoughts.

Captain Cho had tried to warn her, she thought. This is what came of learning pilot lore: people just naturally assumed you were a pilot, even if all you knew were a couple dance moves, or a couple words in hand-talk.

"Step over here for a moment, if you please, Pilot. This will interest you, I think." Instructor Arman said suddenly, guiding her to an observation window like the one into Instructor Tathery's classroom. Theo sighed. That classroom was already starting to feel far away and long ago.

"Tell me what you see, please."

Pilot Arman's voice brought her thoughts back to the present. She looked through the window. Two long rows of students sat at their computers, their faces soft and very nearly expressionless. It took Theo a moment to realize that they were working, and not all of them napping at their screens; their movements were deliberate and slow.

"I see a classroom full of... students," Theo said. She was cold, her stomach tight. She cleared her throat. "I think the teacher needs to call an exercise break; they look pretty sleepy."

"Yes, they do, don't they? That is, for your information, the Parole Class, where those students who have been deemed disruptive or, as we say here, dangerous, are kept. Of course, they are sedated; we have limited staff here, and cannot afford an incident among the children of our visitors."

She swallowed and looked up at him. "Why are you showing me this?"

He smiled his cool smile, and put his fingers against his shirt pocket. The paper inside crackled slightly.

"This is a student transfer memorandum. Theo Waitley was, it says, incorrectly placed and must be moved immediately to the Parole Class."

Theo shook her head. "I'm not dangerous," she said, but her voice sounded breathless.

Pilot-Instructor Arman laughed. "Of course you are dangerous, Pilot."

Her shoulders were tense. If she ran, she thought, where would she go? She was fast, but there were cameras...

"I'm not going in there," she heard someone say, flat and hard.

"Be at ease, Pilot. You are not going in there. The bookkeeping for this rests safely in my hand. This display is for your interest and information only. Please, walk with me again; you'll be eager to meet the other pilots."

Carefully, she turned and walked with him, keeping an extra arm's length between them.

"The sedation," she said, after they had gone a few steps in silence. "Is it perfectly safe?"

"Sedation that you administer is always perfectly safe, Pilot," her new instructor said calmly. Three steps further along, he spoke again.

"We have a thing that we say, Pilot, in such circumstances as you find yourself. It is... advice, and also an expression of... comradeship."

"What..." Theo cleared her throat. "What is it?"

"Watch your back."

Chapter Thirty-Five

Efraim Agricultural Zone

The house was simple to the point of dullness. Each room they passed through was the twin of the room they had just quit, identical down to the grain of the floor.

At the fifth room, their guide paused and turned to them, black lenses flashing briefly.

"The study of simplicity is not lightly undertaken, nor easily put aside," she stated, which was right out of the Book of Plain Thought.

Still, Jen Sar thought, critically, she might have done worse. Had he not himself been engaged in the study of simplicity for many years? Granted, in his case, he thought of the study more in the light of self-defense, but surely the basic thesis was sound.

"One wishes to continue," he said, meeting the opaque glance calmly.

"One's purpose is constant," Appletorn added, which made for oddly comforting hearing.

The Chapelia turned, her robes whispering to the floor, and walked on.

* * * *

"What is this, Pilot Waitley?" Instructor Arman demanded.

Theo sighed. She'd come into class in the middle of Practical Repair – and a good thing, too.

According to Jeren, who was lead on the project, the team's repair project was styled a janci-wagon; he promised to let her ride it, once they had it working again. Since Theo was the smallest, she got to do the close-in, under-carriage work, while Jeren, who was considerably larger, but knew what needed done, watched on the remote and guided her through the steps. She'd just identified the crushed bus link, and was getting her guide splice into position to chomp in a new one. If she had to leave it now, she'd lose whole minutes of nasty, tight fiddling...

"Pilot?" The pilot-instructor sounded... irritated.

"Theo..." Jeren breathed.

Right. Grumbling to herself, she twisted and peered out from beneath the low-lift. Pilot Arman stood some dozen steps away, and he was holding...

"A bowli ball," she answered, and suddenly frowned, slamming the hatch to as she rolled out from under the lift and came to her feet. "My bowli ball. That was in my luggage!"

Pilot Arman looked down his beaked nose at her, blue eyes mocking.

"And that is where it was found, in your luggage. Everything that enters this wing is inspected by Security. The potential risk to pilots, if we did not, is unacceptable."

Theo took a breath, trying to cool the anger tingling at her fingertips and along her nerves.

"You know that a bowli ball's no risk to pilots," she said, and held out her hand. "It's mine. Give it back."

"Yet you would have had me believe earlier that you are no pilot," he said, holding the ball – her gift from Win Ton! – negligently in his hand, like it was someone else's dishes that he was carrying to the disposal.

Her eyes stung, and she swallowed. It would be worse, she thought, to cry in front of this man than to lose her temper. Though it wouldn't be smart to lose her temper, either.

"That's my bowli ball," she said again, her voice sounding clipped, like Kamele's did when she was trying not to lose her temper. "It was given to me by – by a good friend, and I – I'd like it back. Please."

Pilot Arman tipped his head to one side, as if considering whether she'd asked politely enough.

"I understand," he said at last. "Catch."

He threw the ball, hard, straight at the floor. It twisted, gyros screaming, reversed itself, and shot to the left. Theo jumped, got a hand on it, and spun, cuddling the ball against her side. She hit the floor lightly, spinning, and came to rest in one of Phobai's favorite menfri'at positions, facing Pilot Arman.

He smiled at her and raised his hands, fingers flicking careful, no threat, stand down at her, the signs as hard as pebbles.

"I see that the bowli ball is, indeed, yours, Pilot."

Theo took a breath, though she didn't relax. "It is, and I intend to keep it," she said flatly.

"Of course," he answered, as if it had never been in doubt. "You carry it by right; you know that it is not a toy. That is well. Now." He held out his hand. "Your badge, if you please."

He wore the blue shirt, and he was her instructor.

Win-win, thought Theo, around a chill of dread. She stepped forward, detached the pink badge, and held it out to him.

He received it with a slight nod, and slipped it away into his shirt pocket.

"This," he said, producing a green badge like Jeren wore, "will identify you to all as a pilot. As with the other, you will wear it at all times, and surrender it only to Security, to myself, or to a senior pilot. Am I clear?"

Theo nodded, and pressed the new badge into place. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent. You may resume your work."

* * * *

The sixth room was not a precise duplicate of all the other rooms they had passed through previously, nor was the person behind the desk indistinguishable from every other Chapelia he had ever beheld. Startlingly, her face was free of bindings, showing velvet brown skin stretched tight over strong bones. The black lenses lay to hand, on the desk by her mumu. Her eyes were pale blue, rich as silver against that dark skin.

She shook her head as he and Appletorn crossed the threshold, the door closed behind them by their soft-footed guide.

"The University of Delgado sends us a brace of men," she said, and her voice was the voice of all Chapelia, sexless and atonal.

"Indeed, no," Jen Sar told her, approaching the desk nearly. "We came on our own judgment."

"Is that meant to reassure me?"

"Is reassurance simple?" Appletorn asked, coming to stand beside Jen Sar.

"One who is truly simple requires no reassurances," Jen Sar answered, "for to doubt is to embrace complexity."

"Neither of you is simple," the Chapelia behind the desk stated. "Nor have you come seeking a rare simplicity."

Jen Sar lifted an eyebrow. "You might have turned us away at the door," he pointed out, "if our reasons were inadequate."

"Your reason was directly out of the Second Book." She frowned. "Of course, I must see you, or compromise the simplicity of the doorkeeper."

"Ah," said Jen Sar, who had indeed chosen his response for just that reason.

Her frown deepened. "State your case, simply."

"Indeed, indeed." He bowed, palm pushing his cane firmly against the floor. "We come to ask a simple question: Are the Chapelia involved with the Serpent AI which has infected scholarship within the Wall?"

Silence for the space of three heartbeats.

"That is no simple question," she said.

"It's a very simple question," Appletorn said, surprisingly. "Complexity arises in the answer. I have another question, simpler than that which my colleague poses."

She opened her silver eyes wide. "Ask this very simple question, then."

"Gladly," Appletorn said. "Are the Chapelia willing to starve?"

* * * *

"Here we are, Scholars, the Beltaire archive."

Kamele looked about the thin, dank hallway which marked the end of their several descents. Three elevators, the third one an express with but this one destination, so the Research Team was informed. Kamele felt certain that they were in the original treasure house, buried far below the planet's surface.

At the far end of the hall was a door. Director Pikelmin used her key-card and pushed it open, standing courteously aside to allow the scholars to precede her.

A broad-shouldered man in the blue shirt of Security stood behind the counter to the immediate left of the doorway. The rest of the walls were lined with stasis cabinets, their doors opaqued in defense of even the low, UV-free lighting.

"Director," the man behind the counter said as she came forward.

"Solmin. These are the scholars from Delgado invited by Professor Dochayn. Scholars, this is Solmin, Professor Dochayn's aide. You may place yourselves wholly into his hands."

What choice do we have? Kamele thought, having made our choice.

"Solmin," she said, stepping forward, since Hafley did not. "I am Kamele Waitley, these are Professor Orkan Hafley, Farancy Able, and Vaughn Crowley. We are sorry to have missed Professor Dochayn, and will do our best not to disrupt your schedule."

"In fact," Crowley took up. "You will find us quite self-sufficient. A tour of the archive should suffice us; we are all experienced researchers. I wager that you'll hardly know we're here."

Solmin exchanged a glance with Director Pikelmin.

"Scholars," she said, flashing the bright smile that Kamele was beginning to distrust, "we stand now within the archives. In order to minimize any potential damage to the records, some of which are quite fragile, we ask that researchers submit a list of those volumes that they wish to study. Again, in order to minimize damage to the archive, we stipulate that each book may only be drawn once, for a period of no more than three intervals. Once a book has been examined and returned to the archive, it may not be drawn again. I am sure you understand our position. Such records are priceless and we are sworn to protect them as best as we are able."

"Of course." Kamele looked to her team. Crowley was calm; Able serious. Hafley was smiling to herself, as if at a particularly amusing private joke.

"As it happens," Crowley said, reaching inside his jacket. "I have here a list prepared by Professor Beltaire herself." He placed a standard data-key and a sheet of hard copy on the counter.

"Professor Beltaire has been very busy on research team's behalf," Director Pikelmin observed. "I wonder that she did not come herself."

"Professor Beltaire felt that her years precluded such a long journey," Able said glibly.

"I see," the director said. She glanced at the hard copy list, and then back to the assembled professors. "And yet Professor Beltaire is some years younger, is she not, than... Professor Crowley?"

Crowley shrugged. "It is not my business to inquire into the ages of my colleagues," he commented. "Speaking for myself, I'm afraid that it pleased all of my teachers and mentors to note that I was somewhat young for my age."

Director Pikelmin took a breath, her shoulders rising, and Kamele stepped forward, drawing the other woman's eyes.

"Since we have so little time available to us," she said. "I wonder if we might be shown to our quarters and to the study room while Research Assistant Solmin begins to pull the texts listed. The research team would like to get down to work at once."

Director Pikelmin pressed her lips together, then abruptly nodded. "As you say, Professor, time is short. Solmin, the professors are your primary concern while they are with us. Professors, please follow me. You'll find us everything to hand. The dormitory is just a step down the hall, and scarcely more from the study area."

* * * *

"Starve? The Wall consumes; it produces nothing."

"In fact, the scholars of the Wall produce much that is of use to the world and the Chapelia. For instance, crop-plants that have been optimized for growing conditions on Delgado. Our numbers, which are a source of insult to the Chapelia, insure that Delgado remains on several important trade and passenger ship lines. We produce, also, an ideal of scholarly integrity that is unparalleled throughout the galaxy. The phrase, 'as sound as a Scholar of Delgado' has currency on a dozen worlds, and the assurance that not only Delgadan scholars, but their research is sound drives students to seek us, which in turn drives the prosperity of the entire world."

"Interesting." The woman behind the desk turned her cool silver eyes to her other petitioner.

"Have you anything to add to this litany of virtue?"

Jen Sar smiled. "In fact, my colleague has been both precise and comprehensive. It is only left me to mention that, should it begin to seem simple that two male scholars be made to vanish – an aerial map of this house and attendant satellite images, as well as certain pictures of yourself, will be published widely if we do not return to our associate within the wall by the first bell of the new day."

"Pictures of myself?"

"I assume so, though I will grant that the image quality is poor. The person you are meeting with was wearing a disruption field. While this did confuse the image, it also caused the station's cameras to take note of her more closely, and therefore tag the records." He bowed, not quite ironically. "Once again, we are shown the value of simplicity. Had your contact merely taken her chances with the surveillance devices, she would not have called attention to herself, nor to you."

"This is fabrication."

"Alas, it is not, though I admit you have no reason to believe me. My theory, which is complex, is that you were approached by an agent from off-world, who purposed to show you a way to attain that simplicity which the Chapelia hold as ideal. The Chapelia, after all, had once sought to destroy the university and burn the library in their quest to turn complexity aside. They did not succeed, but I allow it to be a simple solution. This new solution – do not burn the library, but make the information it contains suspect. The result will be the same, in time. Students will fail of arriving, scholars will leave in search of funds and opportunity for research elsewhere, the university will dwindle. Perhaps it will even fail. Simplicity returns, and the Chapelia are strong once more."

"That does seem," she agreed, "a simple plan."

He smiled at her. "Except for the part where the world is cut off from trade and from custom. Not all of those outside the Wall are Chapelia. Indeed, Chapelia are but fifteen percent of the world population. How will you handle riots?"

"There is no reason why there should be riots. A return to simplicity – "

"You must," Appletorn interrupted, "study history. Indeed, you must study – my assertions, and those of Professor Kiladi, are easily checked. It may be that the Chapelia have not acted... wisely. Or it may be that they have acted with sagacity. If they have acted without study... then it is less likely that their actions are... uniformly wise."

The symbol-bearer closed her silver eyes.

"What," she asked, "do you want?"

"The name of your compatriot inside the Wall," Jen Sar said.

"Why would I need a compatriot inside the Wall?"

He shook his head. "To give you access to the technical facility, and to mask what predations the AI might produce." He turned to Appletorn.

"Your point is well-made. We must allow the symbol-bearer time for study."

Appletorn nodded. "I could not, in conscience, ask her to make a decision based only upon what we have told her. She must inform herself."

"I agree." Jen Sar looked back to the Chapelia sitting behind her desk. "I would ask, if you find that your research leads to an altered conclusion, that you contact me with the name of your associate."

"If I reach an altered conclusion," the symbol-bearer said, picking the black eye wear off of her desk, and rising, "I will consider that course." She slid the lenses over her eyes, and stared at them blackly. "Good-day, Scholars."

* * * *

The visiting scholars' dormitory consisted of the bunk room, and a common area in which a kaf unit, disposal, two tables and eight chairs fit like the pieces of a puzzle.

"It reminds me of my student days," Able commented, lowering and raising the privacy curtains around one of the beds. "Only roomier."

Kamele smiled, remembering the dorm room she had shared with Ella and two other women at the start of their academic careers. Four bunks, four desks, a table, kaf and disposal crammed into a room two-thirds the size of the common room, with a shared 'fresher down the hall.

"Perhaps we can set up a table and have a few rounds of ping-pong after the evening meal," Crowley said, as he inspected the kaf. "Kamele, such a shame that your daughter isn't with us; I know how she enjoys soy noodles."

"We'll just have to make up for her absence with our own enthusiasm," Kamele said. From the corner of her eye, she saw Orkan Hafley smile, and shivered slightly, as if in a sudden breeze.

"If you have inspected sufficiently for the moment, Scholars," Director Pikelmin said from the doorway, "I will guide you to the study room."

They followed her a few dozen paces down the thin hall, and into yet another comfortless space, this one containing two rows of four utilitarian plastic desks, each backed by a forbidding plastic chair. The light from overhead was bright enough that the furniture cast sharp shadows onto the hard white floor. Along the right side of the room were two movable shelves, one marked "Incoming," the other "Outgoing." The ambient temperature was slightly less than comfortably cool.

"Well," Crowley said. "No distractions to scholarship here."

Kamele turned to Jeyanzi Pikelmin, who was leaning in the doorway. "How will we communicate with Solmin?" she asked. "I don't see an intercom..."

"You may input the titles you wish to have brought to you into that datapad – " Pikelmin nodded at the wall-mounted screen. Solmin will come in every interval to deliver requested texts and to take away those texts you have finished with; you may communicate with him then."

"I see," Kamele looked around her, her stomach tight. The elder scholars had chosen desks side-by-side, and were seating themselves, pulling pens and datapads from their pockets. Hafley hesitated, then walked to the back of the room, claiming a desk in the second row, nearest the movable shelves.

Kamele took a breath. Necessity, she told herself, and she smiled at Jeyanzi Pikelmin. "I think this will do splendidly," she said.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Melchiza

Transit School

Theo had always liked math, not the least because she was good at it, disposing in mere minutes problem-sets that Lesset claimed had taken her hours to derive. She had always considered that math was easy – and it had been.

Delgado math, that was.

The math taught in the Piloting Section of the Transit School was another matter altogether. She was not only behind the class's work, but her general scores were... low.

Theo wasn't used to having low scores. It was one thing to be physically challenged, and quite another to be... stupid.

True to his word, Pilot Arman had assigned her to a tutor, who drilled her in what she called "the basics" until Theo's shirt was damp with sweat. She'd been given self-paced modules, to which she devoted herself, taking the datapad with her everywhere, while her lace needle and thread languished at the bottom of her bag. Occasionally, she would blink out of a haze of temporal fractions to glance at the calendar, and wonder how Kamele was, and if the research was going well.

Running to class after a working breakfast, she was bemused to realize that she had been at school for three local days. It seemed as though she'd been taking pilot classes for half a 'mester at least. Part of that was the fact Melchiza's day was longer than Delgado's, which meant a longer school-day.

The other part was that there was so much to learn! Not just needing to catch up on math, but the mechanics class – not theory of mechanics, either! They were actually building and repairing devices; reminding her of pleasant hours spent in the garage with Father, handing him tools, and watching him tinker. He would tell her what he was doing and why, not as a lesson, really, and sometimes ask her help in setting a screw or reattaching a wire. She'd apparently learned more from those informal session than she had realized; Gayl said she'd already brought the team repair-bay average up by a dozen points.

She hurried across the room to her team's square and slid into her seat just as the bell blared the beginning of the school day. Jeren, Gayl, and Moxi were already in place.

"Hey, Theo," Gayl said. Jeren nodded.

Moxi, the lower half of his face hidden by an embroidered half-veil, turned his head slightly. Moxi was in Cleansing, Jeren had told her, preparing for his ianota, which sounded to Theo like a Gigneri. He was only allowed to speak to his teacher, his father, and his nya – sort of like a mentor, Theo guessed. Gayl said that, usually, boys from Ecbatana didn't travel during Cleansing; she speculated that there had been an emergency in Moxi's family, but of course nobody could ask him.

Theo touched her computer screen, timing in just under the wire and not a heartbeat before Pilot-Instructor Arman strolled into the room accompanied by a short woman wearing a blue shirt and a frown.

"Uh-oh," Gayl muttered.

"What?" Theo whispered.

"Physical dynamics exhibit. I shouldn't have eaten breakfast!"

* * * *

"Physical dynamics," was menfri'at. The piloting class had menfri'at practice twice each day. Despite that, Theo's teammates weren't particularly skilled, and most sessions left her missing Win Ton and Phobai, though she'd have welcomed any of the pilots she'd danced with on Vashtara.

"Pilots arise!" Pilot Arman called, and everybody leapt to their feet, facing front, hands at their sides.

Theo stood between Gayl and Jeren. Usually, Pilot Arman would walk down the line of students – pilots – looking each one down from face to shoes, like he was inspecting them for design flaws, then he would return to the front of the room, call out a module number, and everyone would dance.

This morning, though, Pilot Arman didn't perform his usual inspection. He stood near the door, arms folded over his chest, while the blue-shirt walked forward, her frown growing more pronounced with every step.

She came to rest midway between Pilot Arman and the line of waiting pilots.

"From the left," she snapped. "Module Six."

The leftmost team came forward three steps and danced Module Six, not very well, Theo thought, but better than her team usually managed.

The blue-shirt nodded and called for the next team to stand forward, assigning them Module Three. They were better as a team, and one boy was pretty good. The woman pointed a finger at him when the dance was over, and he walked to the front of the room to stand next to Pilot Arman.

"Our turn," Jeren said, sounding as dejected as Moxi's shoulders looked.

Theo led the way out the floor, her head pleasurably full of something besides math. The four of them stood in a line, facing the woman in the blue shirt. Theo smiled as she relaxed into the ready position.

"Module Eight," said the frowning woman.

Theo flowed forward, arms rising together on the left side of her body, the back of the right hand reinforced by the palm of the left. She spun – and realized that she was too quick; the rest of her team was two beats behind her – Gayl nearly three.

Biting her lip, she slowed, and used the tempo-step Phobai had shown her, so that they could catch her up and they'd be on the same –

"Pilot Waitley!" snapped Pilot Arman.

Theo let the move complete itself, centered herself and turned, suddenly and forcibly reminded of Gayl's comment about breakfast.

"Sir?" she asked, but it was the woman who answered her.

"Why did you amend your process?"

Theo swallowed, and met the woman's eyes. "I didn't want to over-dance my team," she said.

The woman looked to Arman, who sighed and shook his head.

"Theo Waitley," he said, "these pilots are not your crew, they are your study group. You have no obligation to them."

Theo stared. "They're my team," she repeated. "I – "

"Enough," the woman in the blue shirt directed. She pointed at Theo, who blinked, then hurried to the front of the room to stand next to Pilot Arman and the other dancer who had been pulled out of line.

The last team in line danced without distinction. The blue-shirted woman turned without a word and marched to the front of the room.

Pilot Arman nodded. "You two pilots will attend Inspector Vidige." He looked out over the room and raised his voice. "Pilots! Return to places and open to general self-test twenty-seven."

Theo stared at the frowning woman – Inspector Vidige. Was she going to be relocated again? she thought, stomach tightening even more. This woman wasn't even a teacher! What if she was taken outside of the school? What if –

"Attend me, please, pilots," Inspector Vidige said, her voice polite if not cordial. "We adjourn to another room within this building for a fuller testing of your abilities."

* * * *

They fell almost too quickly into the work. During one of their meetings aboard Vashtara, Kamele, Able, and Crowley had divided Beltaire's list between them. Hafley was therefore assigned the chores of internal librarian and secondary fact verification – roles she accepted with surprising grace, and performed with a degree of astuteness.

The room they labored in was cold to the point of being a health hazard; they all wore multiple layers of clothing from the luggage that had appeared in the dorm room sometime during the second – or possibly the third – day. While periods of intense study such as this project demanded did tend to dim awareness of outer conditions, yet Kamele did from time to time wish for a hot cup of coffee to warm her.

That, of course, was quite impossible; Solmin would never permit the precious papers under his care to be put at risk of a coffee-spill. Kamele could sign herself out of the study room when Solmin came in on one of his scheduled pick-ups, but she would then have to time her return to his next visit, and an entire Melchizan hour was far too long to stand away from the work.

There was very little conversation; there would be time for synthesis and comparison during the return trip to Delgado. Kamele's own findings were disturbing enough, in the rare moments that she allowed herself to lose focus, that a recertification of the University of Delgado's central library, at the very least, seemed mandated. Considerations of the expense might have kept her awake, but her few hours of sleep were deep and dreamless.

And, yet, for all the work they accomplished here, they only verified what they had known: That certified copies of documents in the Delgado library had somehow been altered.

What they – what she – lacked even now was proof. Suspicion of conspiracy was not enough. Conversations were subject to interpretation, as were expectations. Jen Sar's phrase: "No one is right until there is proof," had used to infuriate her, and yet... she needed not only proof, but the names of those involved in what would seem to be a vast conspiracy.

Whenever she tried to count out the number of people necessary to wreak such havoc upon Delgado and Delgadan scholars, she caught up on the shoals of who and why? Who attacked historic documents? And why?

* * * *

"Very well, Pilots, who will be first to demonstrate their ability?"

Inspector Vidige frowned impartially at all eight of them. The other six had been waiting for them in this exercise area – three girls and three boys, each wearing a green badge and a wary expression. Behind them was a sight both familiar and unfamiliar. It was, Theo thought tentatively, a dance machine. Unlike the machine she and Win Ton had beat, it was only one level high, hulking and dark, where the other had been brightly lit and colorful. Theo felt a thrill. Maybe this was like the machine Win Ton had learned on, at his school? Maybe –

"Come, come!" Inspector Vidige said sharply. "Modesty flies no ship, Pilots! But, I am previous." She turned to Theo and the other student who had been chosen from her class – Robit Josin, he'd told her during their quick march down the hall – and pointed at the machine. "Have the newest additions to our group used one of these devices?"

"I've used one like it," Theo said, and Robit nodded in agreement.

"Me, too. An arcade game."

"And how well did you score, on this arcade game?"

Robit shrugged. "I hit level thirty-two."

Inspector Vidige nodded and frowned at Theo.

"I – my friend and I danced through the overdrive level," she said. "My friend said it wasn't a true overdrive, though."

"Well, then. Do either of you wish to lead the group?"

Robit shrugged again. "If nobody else wants to go first, I'll break the ice," he said, and jerked his head at a thin girl with her blond hair pulled into a knot at the crown of her head. "Show me the controls, why not?"

"No reason," she answered and walked with him to the machine, the rest of the group trailing after, and Inspector Vidige behind them all.

"Now the rules," she said loudly, after the girl had finished showing Robit the on-switch and the selector buttons. "The pilot-at-dance may dance so long as he likes, until he makes a misstep. You may begin at any level you like and advance to any level you can. One misstep and you must dismount. The machine is set to enforce this. Am I understood, Pilot?"

"Yes, Pilot," Robit said.

"Begin at will."

Robit looked at the rest of the class, bit his lip and looked back to the controls. He looked nervous and Theo didn't blame him.

"Come along, Pilot! Surely you'd like a little exercise?" Inspector Vidige sounded mean, Theo thought, and she was pushing. A couple of the other students giggled, like they thought intimidation was funny.

Theo cleared her throat.

"Excuse me, Inspector Vidige," she said, stepping forward.

The blue-shirt frowned at her.

"Pilot Waitley. What is it?"

"I was just wondering if he wasn't going to pick a partner," Theo said. "I thought this was a team game."

Inspector Vidige was seen to sigh.

"What planet are you from, Pilot Waitley?"

Theo blinked. "Delgado."

The boy to her left sniggered, and the blond girl with the top-knot covered her face with her hand.

"Oh," somebody else further along the arc said, sotto-voce. "Safety first."

"No chit-chat!" snapped the blue-shirt. "Pilot Waitley. The responsibilities borne by a pilot in the commission of his duties, heavy as they sometimes may be, are borne by him alone. This is the reality of piloting and of pilots. Melchiza recognizes that the mating of skill and temperament that creates a pilot is rare, which is why we honor our pilots and grant them privilege beyond what is allowed ordinary citizens. To be a pilot is to be the final judge of weighty – by which I mean life-and-death – decisions.

"To return to the point of today's exercise – no, despite what you may have learned from your friend, this is not a team effort." She turned her head. "Pilot Josin, your colleagues are waiting."

"Yes, ma'am," Robit said, and kicked the start-switch.

* * * *

Robit danced three levels before he made a mistake and the machine froze, knocking him off-balance. He staggered, recovered, and dismounted warily, but really, Theo thought angrily, he could've fallen on his head! There was no reason that the machine had to stop so hard – the silly game she and Win Ton had beat had just rocked to a gentle rest when the set was over. If a game could do it –

The blond girl mounted the machine next, spun the dial without hesitation and began to dance. She might've been good, but she didn't give herself any chance to warm up, so it looked like she was always half-a-beat behind the projected pattern. Eighteen moves in, she tried to recover the lag, got her feet tangled and jumped clear with a yell when the machine locked.

She'd barely landed when a tall boy with a shaved head, his right ear a-jingle with gold rings, stepped up for his turn. He turned the dials deliberately, and dropped back to the dance pad, his eyes half closed; his movements exact, but lazy. Theo thought of Bek – and then she thought of the man on the machine at the Arcade, dancing half-asleep, as if the challenge was too small to take seriously.

The boy with the earrings danced through four levels by Theo's count – and probably could've gone further, if he'd been paying attention.

He turned the stagger generated by the machine's abrupt stop into a somersault, landing light on his feet.

There was a hesitation then, as if the rest of the pilots were weighing whether they could beat the record so far.

Theo shook her head and walked forward.

* * * *

Kamele rubbed her eyes and looked at the shelf again. Surely, the fifth book in the diary set she was studying had been right here on the shelf, next to the fourth, which she had just placed in the outgoing cart? She knew she was tired – they were all tired by now, but – no, she decided, she must have been mistaken. It must have been the fifth book in another set, even now under study by one of the other team members.

Sighing, she picked up the next on her list and took it back to the study station.

* * * *

Unlike the dance machine aboard Vashtara, this machine wanted you to lose, Theo thought. It would throw in sneaky little half-steps, and change tempo when neither made sense. It also had a sensor for how hard you hit the pad, which she'd realized just in time to avoid getting tossed off about four moves in.

She'd started at level fifteen, so she'd have a chance to warm up, and now she was cooking, like Phobai said. While she wasn't particularly having fun, she wasn't mad anymore, either. Her legs were beginning to get tired though, and she scanned the control board, looking for the stop switch. The pattern switched into a fast jig, and she gave up her search to attend to that, fuffing her hair out her face.

What if there isn't a stop switch? she wondered. Do I have to flub a step to make it stop?

The idea of flubbing a step on purpose made her feel cranky all over again. The machine switched to the next level – her eighth, unless she'd lost count – with a series of movements that didn't go together at all. By the time she'd negotiated those, she was seriously considering flubbing that step. She was so sweaty, her hair was stuck to her face, and there was a stitch burning along her right side. Maybe, she thought, it wouldn't be so bad. It wasn't as she hadn't done better than –

There was a flash of pale blue light, and a soft tone. The pattern-screen went blank and the machine... gently rocked to stop.

Theo wiped her forehead on her sleeve and looked out over the exercise area. The girl with the top-knot was shaking her head, and Robit's mouth was frankly hanging open. Inspector Vidige cleared her throat.

"Thank you, Pilot Waitley," she said. "That was most instructive."

* * * *

Orkan Hafley was working at the carts, sorting the books the scholars had finished with onto the outgoing bin. Kamele watched as the Chair worked; she handled the volumes with respect, as any scholar would, making certain that they were arranged in short stacks, which were less likely to fall over, and using all of the shelves. When she finished with the outgoing shelf, she moved to the incoming shelf, straightening the tumbled volumes there, picking one up in her off-hand and continuing with her work. While Kamele watched, she stepped over to the outgoing cart and slipped the volume she had taken from the incoming into the back of a stack.

Kamele came to her feet so suddenly her chair tipped backward and clattered to the hard, white floor.

"How long has this been going on?" she cried.

Able jerked back in her seat, clearly disoriented. Crowley, showing commendable reflexes for a man of his years, leapt up, and caught Hafley's shoulder, effectively restraining her.

"You don't have permission to touch me!" Hafley snapped. Crowley ignored her, as he looked to Kamele.

"Treachery, Sub-Chair?" he asked quietly.

Kamele took a breath. "I fear so, Professor."

* * * *

As it turned out, Inspector Vidige's Advance Class was Theo and Robit's new posting. They didn't have to change dorm rooms again – that was the good news. Theo still had math remediation – that was the bad news. That, and the fact that all of the other pilots in her class thought she'd deliberately shown up better at dance than they were, and she didn't have a chance to do any social engineering to smooth things over, because the Advance Class didn't sit by team; they sat solo.

It made for a long school-day, and, despite the extra load of math Inspector Vidige had off-loaded onto her datapad for her off-hours work, Theo was glad when the bell rang for the free period before supper.

"Hey, Safety First!"

Theo turned, frowning as the blond girl – Initha, her name was – swaggered forward, her thumbs hooked in her belt. Beside her came Fruma, skating a bowli ball from hand to hand, his eyes on Theo's face. The other members of the Advance Class, including Robit, were spreading out on either side of them.

"What do you want?" she asked Initha.

"Want to ask you a question," Fruma answered.

Theo looked to the right, and to the left. She stood at the center of ragged circle. Somehow, she didn't think that was good. She slipped the datapad into a pocket and shook out her hands.

"Ask it, then," she said.

"You know why there aren't any Delgadan pilots?" Initha, again.

"No, why?"

"Because," yelled Fruma, "it's too dangerous!"

He threw the bowli ball, and Theo jumped.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Melchiza

City of Treasures

"Well. There you are." Monit Appletorn all but dropped his cup of coffee on the table as he slumped into the chair across from Jen Sar Kiladi. There were dark circles under his eyes and a general air of weariness about him.

"Here I am," that gentleman agreed, "and well. I hope I find you the same?"

"Seems to me that I found you," Appletorn grumbled, ignoring the question; "though it wasn't necessarily easy. How do you do it?"

Jen Sar raised an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Vanish." He raised his cup and drank deeply. "I walked past this table twice, knowing you must be here, and my eye slid by you."

"Ah." Jen Sar moved his shoulders. "I am a short man, and you, if I may venture, are a tired man. Have you had word from our friend?"

Appletorn shook his head. "I wish I had; it would be easier to sleep."

"You don't find suspense a tonic for a restful night?" Jen Sar raised his mug and sipped tea.

"Perhaps you do!" Appletorn snapped.

"At the least, I am comforted by the observation that we both remain as yet unassassinated."

Appletorn shook his head, finished off his coffee and put the empty cup none-too-gently on the table.

"How – " he began, and stopped.

Jen Sar tipped his head in polite inquiry. "Forgive me, you were about to say?"

The other man half-laughed. "I was about to ask how Kamele Waitley..." Again, he hesitated.

"...tolerated me for so many years?" Jen Sar concluded, and smiled. "The only explanation can be that she is a great-hearted and patient lady."

Appletorn shook his head again and returned to the original topic, like a dog worrying at an old bone. "Do you think we will hear anything, or will they ignore us?"

"I admit that hope of contact is growing faint. If they do ignore us, we shall need to do something... dramatic."

"Taking your case directly to..." He glanced around them, but all the nearby tables were empty on this off-meal hour. "...directly to our friend – that wasn't dramatic?"

"It was necessary," Jen Sar said, worry sharpening his own voice. "Time becomes... an issue, as we discussed." He sighed. "This is what comes of giving one's opponent time for study."

"We could hardly have done otherwise," Appletorn protested.

Jen Sar sipped tea. They could, of course, have done very much otherwise, but threatening one of the high-level Chapelia was risky, to understate the case by a magnitude of ten, and likely would have gained them no more than they held now.

On the other hand, time did grow short. If Kamele arrived home bearing proof of tampering, as he had no doubt she would, she would become a target for the as-yet-nameless outworld agent.

Locating that agent and her compatriots on Delgado, counting them and rendering them powerless – he had taken that as his responsibility, only to find that he was not equal to the challenge.

An outworld agent would not be constrained by the mores of a Safe World. One such agent had already cost him – dearly.

It would not happen again.

* * * *

"What reason do you have to sabotage the work of this research team?" Kamele demanded.

Orkan Hafley gave an amused shrug. "My dear Kamele, you're overwrought. A simple error – "

"Not quite so simple," Able interrupted, raising her datapad. "There are three volumes here which are marked as having been ordered in. When they did not arrive I put it down to the ineptness of our research assistant, and there are other things, after all, on my list to console me."

"I have four," Crowley said, "in similar state. I blamed myself, for hastiness begets error."

"I have one," Kamele said, looking to Hafley. "You have been busy, Chair, but why?"

"Professor Crowley said it himself – haste begets error," Hafley said. "Furthermore, age contributes to a poor memory. All of us have been working long hours and sleeping very little. I'll admit that I made one error of placement – which Kamele recovered! All's well that ends well, with the agreement of my colleagues."

Kamele turned to Able.

"The volumes you thought you had requested," she said urgently. "Request them again."

"Certainly, Sub-Chair." She rose and walked over to the wall-mounted datapad.

"Kamele, really – "

"It has been apparent for some time," Crowley interrupted, "that this project has not enjoyed Chair Hafley's full support. My report to the Directors will reflect this, noting in particular her willingness to place this vital research into the hands of scholars unknown to us, either by reputation or by name. This incident will also be documented. I suspect that the Directors – "

"I suspect that the Directors will know how to take such a report," Hafley interrupted in her turn. "Elderly males are well-known to suffer moments of delusion. Had I the staffing of this team, we should have had Beltaire herself, whatever she may have pretended about her health. This project demanded the weight that only such an august and senior a researcher could lend to it. Admin chose to override me, but they will not allow a report that is clearly nothing more than a work of spite to pass upward to the Directors."

"I – " Kamele begin, and went back a step when the older woman turned to her.

"You!" she said sternly, and shook her head. "I tried to groom you, Kamele, but you would not learn. You're ambitious – a little too much so, may I say? What sort of mother allows her desire to achieve prominence to overrule her rightful concern for her daughter's safety? Anything might happen at that school – Melchiza isn't a Safe World, you know! Who can tell but that you might find that she's been... harmed in some way; changed out of recognition? But you counted the possible cost to Theo too small to consider, and here you are, incommunicado, unable to protect your child – your most important duty! Small wonder you're fabricating threats out of thin air! The guilt, Kamele, that you must – "

"I have a notation on my request, Sub-Chair," Able said from her position at the datapad.

Kamele took a breath. "What is it?" Her voice was steady.

"It says those volumes are no longer available to us."

Kamele took another breath and met Hafley's hard blue eyes.

"Not just one error, Chair Hafley," she said, and turned to the remaining members of the team.

"Compare lists; see if there is a pattern to the volumes we weren't allowed to see. When Solmin comes in next, we will ask him to escort Chair Hafley to the dormitory and confine her there."

"Excellent," Crowley said. Able nodded.

"In the meantime," Kamele looked back to Hafley, feeling the quiver of horror in her stomach. Clyburn, she thought, whose mother is high in Administration. Who could have had Theo placed well in the Transit School...

"In the meantime," she repeated, and her voice was breathless now. "I want to know what you've done to my daughter."

* * * *

Theo extended her leg, carefully, and danced Module One in slow-time, like Phobai had shown her.

"Stretching's good for your muscles and your reactions," she'd said. "Slow stretching's good for bruises."

She sure did have bruises, though nothing as startling as Initha, who'd gotten herself a truly spectacular black eye when she'd misjudged the angle of bounce. All of them had contact burns, though only Fruma'd gotten anything broken. His hand, of course, and he'd been sent to the infirmary when Inspector Vidige broke up the game. The rest of them had been sent to clean up for dinner, without even a mention that they might've been playing a little too rough.

At lights out, Theo had been feeling a little stiff. At wake-up, she'd been feeling a lot stiff. She'd gotten carefully out of bed, done some basic stretches and hobbled down to breakfast, where she'd found the rest of the crew, just as stiff. Initha'd nodded her to a place across from her and then they'd walked to class together, settling carefully into their solo seats.

It was free study now, and standing was permitted. Theo figured that meant menfri'at, too, as long as she didn't get too energetic.

Not much chance of that.

She slid into Module Two, aware that someone was moving on her right. Turning her head, she saw Initha and, beyond her, Robit, and Stan, earrings chiming softly, as they all danced slow-time.

"Good idea," Initha said.

"Good game," Stan added.

"It was," Theo said, and flowed into the next step.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Melchiza

City of Treasures

A comparison of those volumes that Hafley had returned before they'd been used seemed to indicate that she had been opportunistic in her sabotage, rather than deliberate.

Small comfort there.

Kamele's request that she be allowed to contact the Transit School had been denied by a stone-faced Solmin. He understood, he said, that the professor's daughter might stand at risk. He understood that a mother might feel concern – even grave concern. He could not, however, allow the professor to call, though she could of course travel to the Transit School in the company of her assigned Chaperon. If she chose to leave, she could not return to the archives for a period of one Melchizan year. Those were the rules. He was sorry, but he was certain that the professor understood.

Kamele understood.

"Perhaps Chaperon Gidis could be dispatched to the Transit School with a message?" she asked.

Solmin frowned. "I will inquire of Director Pikelmin," he said austerely.

"Thank you," Kamele said, around the needle of dread lodged in her heart. "I appreciate your effort."

But whatever effort Solmin did or did not put forth, it hardly mattered.

Scrutiny of the list of texts that remained unexamined, excepting those that Hafley had returned, revealed that the task was very nearly two-thirds completed. The reputable remaining members of the research team redoubled their own efforts, and inside of a day they were done.

* * * *

"Pilot Waitley."

Theo blinked out of her self-test and looked up into Inspector Vidige's frown.

"Inspector?"

"Please shut down here, Pilot, collect your belongings from your dorm and be at Entry Port Three in..." She glanced down at the note in her hand. "...in one-quarter interval."

"Yes, Inspector," Theo said, her fingers already busy with the shutdown sequence. She looked up again, decided that the frown didn't look particularly forbidding, and ventured a question.

"Where am I going, please, ma'am?"

"I'm informed that a bus will be arriving to take you to the Visitors' Center, Pilot." She raised her eyebrows, and said, with emphasis, "Soon."

* * * *

"Well, there you are, Clyburn!" Orkan Hafley settled into the seat next to her onagrata and patted his knee. "Did you have a pleasant visit with your mother?"

"We had more to talk about than I'd thought," Clyburn said as the rest of the team filed into the bus and chose seats. "Thank you, Orkan."

"You're very welcome, my dear. I'm glad I could do you this little kindness."

Kamele slid into a seat near the exit door, her shoulder against the window. Able, who had entered the bus behind her, hesitated as if she might chose the aisle seat. Kamele turned her head aside. Able moved on.

"And how did your business go?" Clyburn asked Hafley.

"It started well," she said. "Unfortunately, Kamele took it upon herself to accuse me of dishonesty, and Crowley of withholding my approval for the team's mandate – as if I would have put myself to the considerable inconvenience of traveling to Melchiza if I disapproved – but you know what old men are, dear! If you find me more rested than the majority of the team, it's because my generous colleagues evicted me from the study room for the last two days while they labored, and so I was able to catch up on my sleep."

"Professors, professora, sir!" Gidis called, leaping up the stairs into the passenger compartment. "Your business is well-concluded, eh? We go now, immediately, to take the mamzelle up from school. From there, we go by directest route to the Visitors' Center. I will guide you to the Departure Lounge and log you in with the desk there – my last task as your elder brother! Once you are logged, you may leave the lounge only as part of the group ascending to Melchiza Station. On-station, station rule applies until you are once again aboard valiant Vashtara, and safely on your way home to Delgado! Keep your badges with you. Listen to your elder brother! Keep your badges with you while you are in Melchizan space. Once you are aboard Vashtara, you may dispose of them. Are there questions?"

There were not.

"Good!" Gidis said. "We are all informed. In a moment, the driver engages the route. Our schedule is close, so there will be no time to tour the school facilities, as Professora Waitley had hoped. Perhaps upon your next visit to Melchiza, eh?" He leaned over Kamele's seat and grinned at her.

She managed a smile. "That would be pleasant," she said, and he spun away toward the driver's compartment.

"It seems odd that Kamele would have accused you of dishonesty." Clyburn's voice was loud in the absence of Gidis. "After all, she's sub-chair, subordinate to you, Orkan."

"Well! We must make her some allowance. She belatedly realized that she had some reason to be concerned about her daughter's safety. Naturally, she should have thought about that before rashly refusing – but there! It's no more than mother's nerves, I'm sure, and it will be found that Theo took no harm, and is returned to us calm and biddable."

Calm and biddable, thought Kamele, dry-mouthed. The bus lurched slightly and began to move. The Treasure House fell rapidly behind them as Kamele stared at the window, seeing instead into memory.

She recalled Theo high over her head, dancing with Win Ton yo'Vala; Theo playing in the change-field on Vashtara; Theo, her hands busy with needle and thread; Jen Sar and Theo, dark head bent over light, reading a book together...

Is this how a Scholar of Delgado behaves? she asked herself, blinking damp eyes. Does she put everything – even the life of her child – behind her scholarship? If Theo...

But if Theo had taken harm, what could she do, beside gather her child close and take her safely home?

* * * *

"Pilot Waitley."

Theo stopped on the threshold of her dorm room, blinking at Pilot Arman and another man in a blue shirt.

"Sir?" she said experimentally. "I'm supposed to get down to Port Three, right now."

"Exactly," said Pilot Arman. "We are your escort."

"Please," the other man said. He stepped to one side, clearing her route, his fingers flickering a command to Move quick! Ship waits for no one!

She renewed her grip on her bag and moved, quickly, the two men falling in behind her.

"Why an escort?" she asked over her shoulder.

"A small demonstration," Pilot Arman answered as they rounded the corner and headed for the 'vator, "for the benefit of those who would endanger pilots."

Theo punched the call-button, and spun. "Am I... in danger?" she demanded.

The nameless blue shirt shook his head.

"As I said," Pilot Arman amplified, "a demonstration only."

Behind her the 'vator door shusshhhed open. Theo put herself into the rear corner, her bag in front of her. The two security men stood with their backs to her, one on each side of the door.

"There is one thing that we would like you to recall, Pilot Waitley," the nameless one said.

"What's that?"

"Only that Melchiza values pilots, as you saw. If you should wish to continue your education with us, and join the Melchizan Pilot Corps, you will find us most receptive. I'd advise you to retain your badge; it will make reapplication simpler, though of course you may use Pilot Arman and Inspector Vidige as references."

Theo felt her right eyebrow twitch upward. "How long is this offer good for?" she asked. "With all the students that must come through here, they're – the pilots aren't going to remember me for very long."

The 'vator came to a halt. The doors sighed open.

"Oh, we'll remember you," Pilot Arman said, stepping out into the hall. "Never doubt that."

* * * *

The bus pulled into the ramp, slowing only slightly. It slowed again as it negotiated the turn designated as "To Entry Port Three," and almost immediately thereafter stopped.

The door slid open, and Kamele lurched to her feet.

"Stop!" yelled Gidis, snatching at her arm. "The schedule!"

Kamele ducked, flying down the ramp to the inhospitable 'crete platform. A blast of oil-tainted wind hit her as landed, stripping the pins out of her hair. She shook her head, hair whipping out of her eyes, and there, coming toward her –

A woman walked toward her, pale hair floating on the breeze, her steps firm and her shoulders level. There was a green tag affixed to her red jacket, and she pulled a bag behind her. Two men in blue shirts flanked her, following a respectful two steps to the rear.

"Theo?" Kamele whispered. Then, louder. "Theo!"

Maybe she ran the few steps to meet her; maybe her daughter ran, too. Kamele folded the thin body into her arms and rested her cheek against the warm hair.

"Theo," she whispered. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Theo said, matter-of-fact. She took a step back and Kamele reluctantly let her go, searching her face – there was a scrape along her right cheek, but her eyes were steady and her attention sharp.

"Are you all right?" Theo asked. "You look – are you crying?"

"A little," Kamele admitted. "It's been – are you certain you're all right?"

"The pilot has taken no harm while she was under our care," the man with the beaked nose said. The side of his mouth twitched. "Except for what might be expected, from a particularly vigorous game of bowli ball."

"Pilot?" Kamele asked, just as Gidis pounded up to them.

"Professora!" the Chaperon cried. "Mamzelle! I beg you both – the schedule! There is no time – "

"There is time enough for the pilot's mother to assure herself that all is well," the beaked nose man said sternly.

Gidis blinked. "Pi – pilot?" he stammered, and stared at Theo, his mustaches drooping even more than usual.

"Forgive, sir, but the mamzelle was issued the pink badge."

"She was issued the pink badge in error," the other man said, and raised his hand. "Administration has since corrected itself." He nodded to Gidis. "It's good you came down, Chaperon. You will of course see to it that Pilot Waitley is accorded every courtesy while she is in your care."

"But of course – how else! I say to her from the first, I am your elder brother. I protect you and guard you. Leave all to me."

"That's well, then," Beak Nose said. He bowed to Kamele, stiffly, from the waist. "Professor Waitley, it's an honor to meet the pilot's mother."

"We'll clear the bus for quick routing," the other man said to Gidis. "Deliver the pilot safely, Chaperon."

"All of them – every one!" Gidis swore, and turned, snatching at Theo's bag. She stepped sideways, avoiding him easily.

"I'll take it," she said. She glanced at the two men.

"Thank you, Pilot Arman... sir."

"Our pleasure, pilot."

* * * *

Kamele was scared, Theo thought, as they followed Gidis up the ramp and found their seat. Theo slung her bag into the overhead and looked around.

"Hi, Professor Able – Professor Crowley."

"Good afternoon, Theo," Professor Crowley said, and his voice sounded odd, like he wasn't sure if he ought to be laughing or crying.

"Theo," Professor Able said. "You're looking well."

"Isn't she?" cried Professor Hafley. "What did I tell you, Kamele! There was no reason at all to take such a foolish pet. The child's perfectly fine, if a little... grubby."

Theo turned to look at her, and surprised a glare on Clyburn's usually vacuous face.

"Somebody gave Theo a pilot's badge," he said, glare melting into a mocking grin. "Isn't that cute?"

* * * *

It was late. He'd taken to working late at his office in the Wall. The house, despite the efforts of the feline contingent, was a little too... quiet of late. A house ought to be occupied, if one bothered with such things at all, and if on occasion a full house seemed rather too full, well... that was why elderly housefathers maintained a private study with a door that locked.

"Eidolon, I better see some trim in velocity before you hit station-space." The perpetually annoyed voice of the station master issued from the Orbital Traffic Scanner he had installed in the tiny office. It made the place much more homelike, especially in the late hours.

Vashtara will be casting off from Melchiza Station soon, Aelliana offered from the largely empty property inside his skull.

"Indeed it will, and we no closer to having our bit finished with than we were at the beginning."

You did speak with the Chapelia symbol-bearer, she pointed out.

"Much good it did me, or Kamele," he groused, and shook his head. "I'll tell you what it is, Aelliana; I've gotten old."

Not so very old, she said quietly; and you bear it for both of us.

"Ill-temperedly he bears it, but bear it he does. Do you ever think, Aelliana, that we might have chosen another path to Balance?"

We might have done, but see what we should have missed!

He laughed.

"There is that aspect of the matter. Well."

He stood, stretching carefully, then moving a few light steps down the tiny room. By the time he had waltzed between the rowdy chairs to the door, he was feeling positively rejuvenated.

"I think we must accept that the symbol-bearer has decided that it would be far simpler to allow complexity to strangle upon its own woven strands. If we are to aid Kamele's cause, we must take the assault to the Tower ourselves."

Have we a name? Aelliana asked. A direction?

"There's the rub," he admitted, walking back to his desk.

"We must, I suppose, inquire of the Serpent. I had not done so previously for fear of showing our hand. However, the time may have come for desperate – "

A chime sounded, heartbreakingly pure against the chatter from the OTS.

It's late, Aelliana said, for visitors.

"It is, isn't it?"

Plucking the Gallowglass cane up from its lean against the wall, he crossed to the door.

He took a breath, feet firm, knees flexed – and tapped the plate.

The door slid open.

One of the Chapelia stood before him, at a guess, quite young. She was scarcely taller than he was.

"One answers," he said, keeping his voice soft despite his heart's abrupt, foolish racing.

"One is sent," the sexless one-voice replied. "The man who opens this door is to accompany this one to a place." She raised her hand and drew a sign in the air, recognizable as that belonging to the symbol-bearer he had spoken with.

"One understands and is ready to obey – " He sketched the sign in the air " – immediately."

Backup? Aelliana demanded, as he stepped out in the hall, the door to his office closing behind him.

At long last, the game was afoot.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Melchiza Station

"Nothing to declare?"

"Bored" didn't begin to describe the attitude of the pre-boarding custom's monitor. Theo couldn't exactly blame her, since her job was to watch the luggage go by her on a belt. She did touch some bags lightly with a wand; others, she didn't touch at all, but merely stared at the scans set into the table before her.

Some bags, she pulled off the belt and inspected minutely.

Kamele's bag went through without a question. She nodded at Theo and moved to the slideway to the boarding lounge as her luggage went elsewhere. Theo breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn't had a chance yet to talk in private, but she was glad to see that Kamele was calming down. She'd been jittery until the bus had gotten to the Visitors' Center, and had clutched Theo's hand tight while they waited in line for the shuttle. Now, though, it looked like Theo was going to get a little space to breathe.

"Shielding on this, sir?" the monitor asked Professor Crowley.

"Vacuum and particle safe," he admitted, raising his hands. "It's been with me since my first trip to high camp when I was an undergraduate. We..."

But the monitor was bored again. She used the wand, and passed the old bag on.

"Nothing to declare?"

A pause.

"Nothing to declare, Pilot?"

That tone more than the words grabbed Theo's attention – she hadn't realized that Professor Crowley's luggage was through already; she'd been so busy thinking about Kamele and what could've happened – and there was the Professor, already on the slideway.

"Nothing to declare," Theo assured the monitor.

The woman glanced down at her read-outs, stiffened and directed a frown at Theo.

"Please open."

Theo raised her glance to the ceiling and sighed.

"The job must get done," the woman said, almost daring a reply...

Theo worked the dual combo and opened the duffel, the woman spread it half open on the counter and wanded it. When the wand beeped she looked not at all startled, but reached into the neatly rolled and folded clothes, pushed aside the traveling school book in its protective envelope, and pulled out the bowli ball.

"That's mine," Theo began –

"Yes, Pilot, but it is not properly shielded." The monitor reached below the counter and pulled out a silver bag, which she passed to Theo. "If you please, Pilot."

Biting her lip, feeling the line growing long behind her, Theo slipped the ball into the bag and sealed it.

"Thank you," the monitor said. "Please close your bag."

She did so, hastily. The woman produced a green card like the one Theo wore on her jacket and slapped it on the duffel's side.

"The tag marks this out as a pilot's luggage," she said. "You may enter the passenger lounge at will. The Pilots' Lounge on level three is reserved for active pilots just in or out, and their guests, please don't strain the regs. Have a pleasant journey."

She turned aside and Theo hurried away, biting her lip.

"Anything to declare?" the monitor asked the next passenger.

* * * *

"Kamele, I'd like to go for a walk," Theo said. "Just around the duty-free. I – "

Her mother glanced up from the datapad she'd been studying and looked around the lounge. It was, in Theo's opinion, a boring space, mostly full of chairs, infoscreens, and nervous people. Beyond it, the Concourse glittered; the stuff in the shops was 'way too expensive, she knew, just like on Vashtara, but it was interesting to look in the windows.

"I think we could both use a walk," Kamele said, slipping the 'pad away. "If you'd care for some company?"

Theo thought about being annoyed. Then she remembered how upset Kamele had been, and smiled.

"Company would be good," she said.

* * * *

They'd window-shopped half of one long side of the duty-free shops, taking their time, and pointing out especially absurd prices to each other. Theo's recollection had been wrong; the duty-free shops on Melchiza Station charged even more for everyday items than the shops aboard Vashtara.

She let Kamele get a window ahead of her while she lingered over a display of "athletic equipment," including foam-core boomerangs, ping-pong paddles, and – there! Nestled in back among a row of ordinary throwing spheres was a bowli ball. Theo tapped the window for more information, and gasped when the price came up.

Hastily, she tapped the pop-up away, and shook her head. It was a good thing Kamele didn't know how much the bowli ball had cost, or she'd have never let Theo keep it. 'Course, Kamele thought bowli balls were toys.

Shaking her head, Theo moved on, dancing aside as a woman in a leather jacket came out of the athletic equipment store.

"Sorry!" The woman said, shaking black hair out of her face.

"Phobai!" Theo cried gladly.

The pilot grinned. "Theo! Hey, look at that!" She extended a hand and stroked the green badge. "Fast work."

"They even call students 'pilot' at the Transit School," Theo said, face heating.

"No," Phobai said, "they only call some students pilot in the Transit School." She touched Theo's cheek lightly. "Get into a fight?"

"No, a bowli ball game."

"Hah! Did you drop it?"

" 'Course not!"

Phobai laughed.

"Theo?" Kamele had noticed she was gone. Theo grabbed Phobai's hand and turned her around.

"Phobai, this is my mother, Kamele Waitley. Kamele, this is Phobai Murchinson, she's one of the pilots on Vashtara. We played bowli ball together and practiced dance – "

"And a fine dancer she is, your Theo!" Phobai said with a grin. She held out her hand and Kamele took it with a smile.

"I'm always glad to meet Theo's friends – and her teachers!" she said.

"Not a teacher; Theo was born knowing the moves. All I do is remind her." She turned to Theo. "Do you want in on bowli ball? Cordrey's on opposite shift this first leg, but we've got Len, Joadin, and Truitt for sure, and maybe Valince and Jorj. You're welcome to play."

"I'd like that," Theo said. "Text me the time and room?" She bit her lip, realizing that she should have asked before – but a glance to the side showed Kamele smiling softly.

"Sure," Phobai said to Theo. "Are you shopping? Let's walk together. I've got some other things to pick up before they call crew back."

The three of them turned and walked down the row of shops, Theo making sure that the walk-crowders didn't push Kamele. Phobai looked at her from beneath her black lashes.

"Taking up some extra space, aren't you?"

Theo blinked, remembering Initha's swagger.

"Am I?" she asked, stricken. "I just – "

"Nothing wrong with it," Phobai said quickly. "It's just a new look for you. You're right, too; in this crowd you've got to walk wide or get crushed! Here's my next stop, and then I've got to run for the gate." She smiled. "Professor Waitley, it was good to meet you. Theo – I'll see you soon!"

She vanished into a shop displaying three diaphanous articles – lingerie, Theo thought, though with a bewildering amount of laces and other fasteners –

"Let's walk over this way," Kamele said, interrupting any further study of the shop's display. "I'd like to check the departure times."

* * * *

Theo shook her head, trying to get her hair out of her eyes. Something about the change in pressure in the glass airlocks, or maybe it was the change in air source. The breeze had been sudden and cold; likely it was used to help keep the grounder dirt and bugs someplace other than in the station's air supply.

Now that she could see again, she was faced with a wall of chronometers keeping a dozen times, just like on Vashtara, though Melchiza local time was displayed where Vashtara had displayed Standard Time.

Underneath the clocks were infoscreens displaying the names and departure/arrival times of incoming and outgoing ships. Vashtara was comfortably listed right next to Melchiza Station; the notes stating that it was still debarking passengers to other lounges. Phobai must've gotten off-ship as soon as it docked, Theo thought.

According to the 'screen, they'd be boarding around the time that Theo had gotten used to thinking of as lunch time. She reached to her jacket pocket, where her three day's eating money rode, and said a word she'd heard Win Ton mutter upon certain occasions.

"What is it?" Kamele asked, as ignorant of the meaning of the word as Theo was, and happily without the benefit of its use in context.

"I've still got the datapad with my math remedials!" She pulled it out of her pocket.

"We must return it," Kamele said briskly and looked around her. "There!" She pointed to a sign that said Shuttles and Private. "We'll give it to the shuttle captain; he can take it back to the Visitors' Center the next time he has a fare, and the Visitors' Center can send it back to the Transit School."

It certainly sounded like a good plan. Theo fell in beside Kamele.

The glitter and noise of the shopping district quickly disappeared. Also, the warmth. Theo was glad of her jacket and wished she'd brought an extra sweater. They passed a couple of people in coveralls with "Melchiza Station" stenciled on the breast, and a few pilots, leather jackets fastened close.

The corridor curved; and ahead of them were two more people. A male pilot, pulling luggage or last-minute stores, walking slowly with someone who was patently not a pilot. Her hair was slightly askew and she walked uncertainly, like she'd wandered into a change zone once and did not ever wish to repeat the experience.

The pilot had one hand around the woman's arm, urging her on. He wasn't wearing a leather jacket, but a fringed one, like –

Theo blinked.

Clyburn isn't a pilot! she thought, and looked again.

Gone were the mincing steps and swaying hips, traded in for a pilot's smooth stride.

"What are they doing here?" Kamele exclaimed, and rushed forward, her voice sharp.

"Orkan Hafley, there's a review board waiting for you on Delgado!"

Clyburn dropped Professor Hafley's arm and spun, pilot fast, green tag shining through the fringe. The expression on his face reminded Theo of Fruma, right before he had thrown the bowli ball at her.

"Go away, Kamele," he said, his hand going inside his jacket.

Theo jumped.

She landed between Clyburn and Kamele, her hands out in defensive mode, her feet set firm.

"Don't!" she snapped.

Clyburn blinked, his hand moved –

"Theo!" Kamele cried, putting a hand on her shoulder. Theo twisted, but her balance was destroyed – and Clyburn was running, and Professor Hafley with him, as best she could, suitcase clattering after.

"Stop!" Kamele cried.

Theo grabbed her arm. "Let them go!" she shouted.

Her mother turned and stared. "Let them go? Theo, Chair Hafley has committed an ethics violation that endangers the entire university. She must come up before the review – "

"He was going to – to throw something at you!" Theo interrupted. "He was going to hurt you!"

Kamele blinked. "Surely not," she said, but her voice was uncertain.

Theo sighed.

"Let's get back to the main hall," she said. "You need to talk to your team."

* * * *

The child was admirably light of foot, and fleet, besides. Jen Sar followed at a distance, as an old man might, though he dared to pause only once, where the hall was straight for a length that gave him some hope of catching her again. He leaned lightly against the wall and reached into his pocket, bringing forth a silken handkerchief, which he touched to his temples and upper lip before letting it fall negligently to the floor in his haste to catch up his guide.

She kept scrupulously to the back halls and the service corridors. Possibly, the symbol-bearer had meant thereby to confuse him; possibly, it was the only route the child knew. In neither case did their direction elude him.

That their final destination must lie in the Administration Tower was certain; such a scheme as they had uncovered would need an administrator in it, and a librarian, too. He hardly thought it could be more than two, and then the secret would have to be sealed with fear as well as bribery.

His guide pushed the button to summon a lift, lenses glinting as she turned her head away.

Jen Sar sighed lightly. It would, of course, be most elegantly simple, to deliver him into the midst of the conspirators, and let them each make of the other what they might. The symbol-bearer being no fool, this was doubtless precisely her intention.

It would, he thought, be interesting to see how that played out.

Chapter Forty

Vashtara

Mauve Level

Stateroom

"Chaos driven nidjit," Theo muttered, bent over the datapad that hadn't gotten sent back to the Transit School, after all. She'd sent a message down to Pilot Arman via Melchiza Station's Public Comm, asking how she could return it.

The answer had arrived before she'd gotten back to the boarding lounge.

Consider it a gift, Pilot, with my compliments. Arman.

Which was great – or not, depending on the results of the most recent self-test.

"Why can't you figure this stuff out?" she asked herself, tapping the screen and glaring down at the latest troublesome set of equations.

Kamele, curled into the double-chair while she worked on the report about how the research team had managed to misplace Chair Hafley in transit, looked up, and murmured, "I'm sorry?"

Theo glanced up warily.

"Nothing, sorry. It's about this math."

"Math?" Kamele repeated. "You can't be doing math, again, can you?"

Theo pushed the datapad forward.

"Yes, I can. I'm behind."

Kamele rose.

"Let me see that. Why don't you go to the Atrium and ask them to give you one of those cheesecakes for us to share? The walk will sharpen you up!"

* * * *

"Here," his guide said abruptly. She pressed the plate and turned away before the door was wholly open, walking back the way they had come.

Jen Sar watched her round the corner of the hallway, then stepped through the door and into a foyer. Turning quickly, he tapped the manual override, and eased the door along its track until it was almost closed.

"That must be the Chapelia!" a woman's voice said sharply from the room beyond. "Come in, come in! You're late!"

Jen Sar took a breath, renewed his grip on his cane and walked forward.

Tandra Skilings – the other name he had recognized on the Serpent's list – saw him first; her reaction a mixture of anger and disbelief.

"Kiladi, what are you doing here? Leave at once!"

"Alas," he said softly, bowing as the others turned to stare at him. "I come in the place of the symbol-bearer, who I deduce has... decided on the part of simplicity."

"Who is that?" a woman he did not recognize demanded. She wore a Director's coat, but she held herself more like a fighter than an academic. Her right hand was in the pocket of her jacket, a fact he observed with sorrow.

"I am Jen Sar Kiladi, Professor of Cultural Linguistics," he said gently. "And you are, perhaps, the off-world agent responsible for alteration of certain library records? I hope that you may be; I had particularly wished to make your acquaintance."

The false director looked to Skilings, then to Sub-Chancellor Kylin, standing stiff with alarm at her right hand. "We've made significant progress; we cannot allow our efforts to be nullified by one elderly professor."

She pulled her hand out of her pocket. As he had suspected, she held a gun.

* * * *

"Theo, how did this happen?"

Kamele was standing when she returned, datapad in hand.

"I'm a nidj?" Theo asked, putting the dainty box with its pretty blue bow on the table.

Kamele shook her head. "I used my override for your school book," she said. "It reports that your math scores are higher than average for your learning group. So much higher, in fact, that it has placed you in an accelerated learning program. This – " She shook the datapad, "shows me a list of failed self-tests, multiple re-tests and produces a statement that the student requires remediation."

"I'm a nidj," Theo said.

"Theo..." Kamele said dangerously. "If you have any insight into why there's such a wide gap in the results reported by these two programs, I would very much like to hear it."

"I think it's because that – " she touched the datapad Kamele still held, "is piloting math. Pilot Arman said my scores were low – and tutor! She couldn't believe I'd never had any of this material. She said it was basic!" Theo smiled, mouth crooked. "At least I got to understand how Bek feels about math, in general. But, I had to catch up. It's just that it's being..." She frowned, looking down at the sculpted mauve carpeting. "...a challenge."

There was a small pause. "Your friend Win Ton told me that you relish a challenge."

"Well, I do. I guess. But I like to feel like I'm making some progress!"

"I see." Kamele put the datapad next to the school book and went over to the hospitality unit. Silently, she drew a cup of coffee and a cup of tea and brought them over to the table.

"Sit," she said, placing the cups.

Theo sat. Hospitality tea was pretty good. Not as good as fresh-made, but drinkable. She wondered, idly, if the university could afford to upgrade the kafs in the Wall to hospitality units...

Kamele finished decanting the cheesecake. She handed Theo a fork and took the other for herself.

"Eat," she said. "It seems to me you've earned this."

Theo needed no more encouragement to enjoy cheesecake. Kamele, though, wasn't eating.

Theo put her fork down and looked at Kamele, seeing her fingers twitch, almost as if there were something she needed to say in hand-talk, or as if, as if her fingers wanted shout out in song...

Kamele closed her eyes.

"Theo, I haven't been able to tell you... there hasn't really been enough time..."

Watching the hands again, hearing the nondirection in the voice, Theo realized what she did see: Kamele was nervous!

"Theo," Kamele started once more, moving both hands forward with a flick, like she was passing a ball so someone else could score...

"I want to tell you how proud I am of you," and now her voice was strong, her hands calm. "This trip has been so busy, and I've been too much involved in the things I need to do. Necessity. I was concerned – many times – that you were in over your head, and that I was."

She paused for a sip of her coffee. Theo waited, wondering what this had to do with failing math.

"This trip, you haven't acted like the – the person Marjene claimed you were, full of accidents and immaturity. You haven't been avoiding social situations. You've made friends. You've studied, you've grown so much. And I need to tell you, that I'm so very proud. I'm so pleased that Jen Sar suggested you come with me. You..."

Theo sat up straight, cheesecake forgotten.

"Father what?"

Theo felt her hands demanding explain, even as the words tumbled out of her mouth.

"Are you telling me that Father wanted me to come with you? It was his idea?"

Kamele nodded; for some reason she seemed amused.

"I was going to leave you with him, since Ella was... overcommitted. And asking anyone else: with the complications of Marjene, and the hearing – I needed someone secure. And, well..."

Here Kamele paused, hands showing a touch of that hesitation again.

"He was right, Theo. I couldn't leave you on Delgado – it was too dangerous. He told me that what you needed was to spread your wings."

"He told me local custom demanded that I go with my mother!"

They stared at each other. Both began to laugh at the same moment.

"Theo, you know Jen Sar always plays both sides against the middle!"

Theo nodded, recalling times that he'd made her think something was her idea when surely it was his...

She felt her fingers flicker, and looked down, catching a repeated refrain: good plan, good plan, good plan.

Kamele moved, visibly relaxing, her hands moving briskly, as if she swept crumbs off a table, or finished with an idea. She glanced at the room's chronometer, and stretched.

"Maybe you'd better check with Phobai Murchinson about the times for bowli ball," she said. "You're pushing too hard, Theo. Relax. Tomorrow, the next day, too – take some lectures. Pick a couple, and I'll join you. Take a few days off from math."

Theo looked hard into Kamele's face.

"But the scores..."

Kamele looked back, hard, and held up her hand, first finger extended.

"One," she said sternly. "As a teacher and a scholar I have noticed that, sometimes, the best one can do is to not think about a knotty problem. Brains need rest and diversion. More often than not, when the scholar returns to her vexing problem, the solution is obvious. Two."

She tipped her head to one side, like Coyster considering the merits of a new toy.

"This is the last time I expect to do this," she said slowly. "I am invoking Parental Override. You're on holiday. Go – do something else! Dance, turn somersaults in the hallway, but no more math, not today and not tomorrow. You're on holiday!"

* * * *

Jen Sar leapt sideways, rolling, meaning to get under the furniture and stay there until –

"Wait!" Kylin shouted, grabbing the outworlder's arm. "What are you – we can't kill Kiladi!"

"Certainly we can, and must," the woman snapped, wrenching herself free. "And if the Chapelia have withdrawn their support – "

"Why should they?" Skilings demanded. "The new order will be advantageous to them."

"The new order?" Ella ben Suzan asked loudly. "The new order where the university is in tatters and knowledge is suspect?"

They strode into the room, Ella, Monit Appletorn, Emeritus Professor Beltaire, Technician Singh and five Safeties, restraints adorning their belts.

"What is the meaning of this?" Skilings demanded. "Since when can colleagues not enjoy the company – "

"Matter of public safety," Appletorn interrupted. "Suspicion of intent to harm scholarship."

"And that," Professor Beltaire said in her voice that sounded like a breeze moving over yellowed paper, "is a weapon, Safeties. Please act according to your training."

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

Chapter Forty-One

Delgado

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'd 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 advertant 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."

She looked up and caught his eyes in the rear view mirror.

"What did you do?" she asked, genuinely curious.

Father laughed, and eased the big yellow taxi on to the parkway. "The young today," he said conversationally to Kamele, "have so little respect for their elders."

Chapter Forty-Two

Number Twelve Leafydale Place

Greensward-by-Efraim

Delgado

"I can't believe how big you've gotten!" Theo exclaimed for maybe the fifth time.

Coyster yawned from his position in the center of her bed, and settled his chin on his paws.

She laughed and bent to her case again. "I know! I sound like five silly aunts! But it's really good to see you again!"

Her closet was still in the apartment in the Wall, of course, but she was unpacking anyway – the stuff from her bag would go into the chest of drawers just fine for now.

Her room was so big! Closing the drawer, she spun slowly on her heel, surveying unlimited space. The room was set to default – pale blue walls and darker floor – the old mobile spinning lazily in the breeze from the vent, and the row of ragged storybooks providing the only splashes of color. She could, she thought, put all her old pictures back up, pour the fish into the floor – make it all just like it had been, before.

Later.

Now, she went over to the bed and stretched out next to Coyster, her arms folded under her head, and her eyes half-slitted. She thought about calling Lesset, but didn't move. Beside her, Coyster began to knead, his purr punctuated by tiny popping sounds as his claws penetrated the quilt.

"I'm glad you're glad," she murmured, and the volume of his purrs increased.

They'd had tea and a cold luncheon in the garden, just the three of them, and they hadn't talked about the trip at all, but listened to Father ramble on about the cats, and the new plantings he'd made in the garden, and his fishing trip in the mountains near where Kamele's second-mother had been born – and it had been... relaxing.

He was giving us time to get our planet-legs, Theo thought drowsily. At some point Mandrin and Coyster had joined them. Mandrin jumped onto Father's lap, but Coyster sat on the grass directly in front of Theo, his back to her, and his ears swiveled 'round so that he could hear her slightest move.

"Oof!" Theo said, jackknifing as Coyster stepped firmly on her stomach. "You really have gotten big!" She squooshed him down flat on her chest, giggling when his whiskers tickled her throat.

Kamele had promised not to keep Father long, though, of course, they had to "talk." Theo sighed.

"I'm going to be fifteen years old tomorrow," she told Coyster. "Delgadan years," she added, just to be clear. Coyster puffered a purr and stretched his right front leg 'way out, so it was resting on her shoulder and his paw was in the air next to her ear.

She should write that to Win Ton – about being fifteen tomorrow. 'Course, he wouldn't get the letter for who knew how long, but she'd kind of gotten in the habit of writing to him on the way back – just things she'd seen that she thought he might think were interesting, or funny, or –

There was a tap at her door. Theo rolled, dumping Coyster unceremoniously onto the bed, and crossed the room to touch the plate.

The door slid away to reveal a smiling Kamele.

"Thank you, Theo," she said. "Jen Sar's waiting for you in his office."

* * * *

"Father," she said from the threshold of the room, while her fingers signed deliberately, Pilot.

He watched her face, not her hands, his own occupied with rubbing Mandrin's ears.

"Theo. Come in, child."

"Thank you," she said. Why was he ignoring her? Was she wrong? But, no, she told herself as she slid into the chair next to his desk. She wasn't wrong.

"How do you find your room?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. Mandrin shook her head and jumped down, hitting the starry floor with a solid thump.

"It feels huge!" she answered, and her fingers moved again: Pilot duty here is.

His eyes on her face, Father shook his head slightly. "Theo, is there a reason that you are persisting in this?"

Maybe, she thought, heart sinking, maybe she was wrong. She met his eyes firmly, folding her hands tight on her lap.

"Yes," she said steadily, "there is. I have a card from a – a scout and a pilot, she told me to say – to be given to the pilot who trained me." She took a breath and forced herself to finish calmly. "And if that's not you, then I don't know who to give it to."

Silence, followed by an almost soundless sigh.

"I see," he said, his fingers flickering so neatly that she almost missed, Duty accepted.

Relief knifed through her. She bit her lip and fished Cho's card out of her safe pocket, where she'd kept it ever since Melchiza.

"Here."

He slipped it out of her fingers – so quick, so sure! Theo shook her head again, mentally chiding herself for having been so blind.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"Tell you what?" he returned absently, turning the card over.

"That you're a pilot. Does Kamele know?"

"Until now, it has not been pertinent to our relationship. Possibly she does, though it's conceivable that I have not been entirely clear. It is," he murmured, leaning over to slot the card into his computer, "so difficult to be certain in these matters."

"But why are you here?"

"To teach." His fingers flickered: Quiet incoming.

Theo bit her lip, watching the side of his face – which told her just about as much as it ever did. She came to her feet and moved to stand behind him so she could see the screen – which did her no good at all; it was filled with flowing lines of written Liaden.

"Do you read Liaden, Theo?"

"No," she said, sadly. "I was going to start learning, but I had to catch up my math, instead."

"A difficult choice, I allow. Well. Scout Captain sig'Radia proposes you to me as a young person of wit and promise, who has demonstrated both flexibility and strength of purpose. She therefore offers, if your mother agrees and she does not offend local custom, to stand as your sponsor."

"My sponsor," Theo repeated blankly. She leaned over his shoulder, glaring at the screen as if she could wring sense from the alien letters by sheer force of will. "My sponsor for what?"

"I note that the good captain does not include 'patience' in her list of your many excellencies," Father said dryly. "To continue. Captain sig'Radia, in her melant'i as Scout Pilot and Trainer, offers to sponsor you to Anlingdin Piloting Academy on Eylot."

Sponsor her! To a piloting academy! I want it! was her first thought. Her second, with a glance at the starfield spinning beneath the study floor to steady herself, was more sobering.

"What does that mean – sponsor?" she asked. "What's the – " A sudden thought of Win Ton, tapping his beaker against hers – "What's the trade?"

"Ah." Father leaned back in his chair and looked up into her face. "Travel is broadening, indeed."

"It's a fair question," she said, frowning at him.

He raised a hand, the old silver ring glinting on his finger. "Do not eat me! It is indeed a fair question, and well-asked." He nodded at the screen. "Captain sig'Radia offers a paid scholarship for the first three semesters – a full Standard year, you will apprehend. If, at the end of that time, you have not placed in the top thirty percent of your class, she will withdraw her support, without prejudice. There will be no debt to repay. If you thereafter wish to continue pilot training at your own expense, you may of course do so."

The top thirty percent? She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been in the top five percent of her class!

"I'll do it," she said, stomach fluttering.

Father inclined his head. "You will, of course, need to bring your math scores up."

Theo's stomach lurched. How could she have forgotten?

Father reached across his desk and picked up the datapad, tapping in a quick sequence. "Instructor's override," he murmured and held the device out so that they could both contemplate the information displayed.

"These are," he murmured, "perfectly good – even quite good – math scores for someone destined for almost any life-path except that of pilot. Pilots hold ship and passengers in their hands. Their math must be nothing less than sublime." He paused.

"It is not," he continued a long moment later, in a carefully neutral tone, "a trade at which everyone excels – or a trade at which everyone can excel. It is... exciting. Exhilarating. Dangerous – in many ways – and it often weighs heavy, for lives are not light."

Theo looked at him doubtfully. "You sound like you – don't want me to try."

He raised an eyebrow. "Child, this choice rests with you."

She bit her lip. "Did you... work... as a pilot, Father?"

He might have sighed, very gently. "Yes."

"Was it – do you wish you hadn't?"

"Never in my blackest hour." He laughed softly. "What a poor advisor I am, to be sure!"

"No," she said seriously. "A bad advisor lies just to keep somebody safe." She took a breath, but, really, her mind had been made up the moment she had heard Captain Cho's offer.

"I want to go." she said firmly.

"Go where?" Kamele asked from the doorway.

* * * *

"How long, then," Kamele said, "to bring up those math scores?"

Father moved his shoulders. "I can tutor her, if you like it. Or I might assist in choosing an appropriate self-study course..."

"Would you teach me?" Theo asked diffidently. It was late, and her head was heavy. As far as she was concerned, the decision was made, all that was left were details. Kamele, though, seemed to want every corner nailed down tonight.

They'd long since repaired to the common room, breaking once to rustle sandwiches, and again to brew a new pot of tea.

"I will," Father said, lifting an ironic eyebrow. "If you will endeavor to recall that you desired me to do so."

"I will," she promised him, and smiled when Coyster, asleep on her lap, rolled over on his head and yawned hugely. "Really."

"How long?" Kamele repeated her question.

Father moved his shoulders. "If she is an apt pupil, she may be ready to enter the lower class at Anlingdin by the end of Delgado's current semester."

Kamele nodded, eyes thoughtful, and sipped tea.

"Is Eylot a Liaden world?" she asked then, and Theo blinked. She hadn't even thought to ask that!

"Eylot is what is politely termed 'an outworld' by proper Liadens," Father said. "Roughly, there is parity between the Liaden and Terran populations."

"So I should learn Liaden, too," Theo broke in, "before I go."

"You may wish to make a beginning, yes," Father said. "It's never amiss to carry an extra language or six in one's pocket."

"Conservatively, then, Theo will remain on Delgado for at least six – local – months," Kamele said.

"I believe that a fair estimate, yes," Father murmured.

"Well, then." She rose. "If you will both excuse me for a moment..." She left the room at a brisk walk.

Theo yawned, belatedly raising a hand to cover her mouth. "Is there any more tea?" she asked.

"A bit," Father answered. "We have drunk epic amounts, but I believe to good effect."

Theo giggled sleepily. "Would you pour me some more tea, please, Father?"

"Certainly, Theo." He did so and handed her the cup.

Theo sipped. It was the bottom of the pot, tepid, and absolutely delicious. She closed her eyes to savor the astringent flavor – and opened them as Kamele's step sounded in the hall.

Her mother re-seated herself on the sofa next to Father, and put the slim packet tied with pink ribbon on her lap.

"Theo," she said, leaning slightly forward. "Today is your fifteenth birthday."

"Today?" Theo sat up straighter, and looked over her shoulder at the clock. "You mean tomor – " But it was, so the clock told her, past midnight. She looked back to Kamele.

"Today," she agreed.

Her mother nodded. "You are now eligible to celebrate your Gigneri and to be entrusted with the tale of your grandmothers," she said slowly. "If you will allow me to advise you, I would suggest that you choose to have a small, private ritual in the old style at the earliest possible moment." She tapped the packet on her lap. "This morning, in fact."

Theo thought about that. If she had her Gigneri, she would be a beginning adult, with increased advantages – and responsibilities. She could, for instance, decide whether or not she needed a mentor. Unless she was condemned as a public hazard, the safeties couldn't force her to do anything...

"I see the advantages," she said, her hand flat on Coyster's upturned belly. "But – 'old style'?"

It was Father who answered. "Your First Pair would be put off until a time and place of your choosing," he murmured. "Fifty local years ago, the mode was to celebrate the coming-of-age first, with one's inaugural sexual encounter to be arranged by the beginning adult herself, taking such advice from her elders as she deemed necessary."

Theo blinked. "Well, that makes sense," she said, and wondered why Father laughed.

"If it's acceptable to you, Theo," Kamele said seriously. "We can celebrate your Gigneri right now. Just the three of us."

"With," Father added, "the appropriate announcement in the Scandal Sheet."

Theo nodded, and gave Kamele a smile. "It's acceptable."

"Good." Kamele stood, and Father did. Theo struggled briefly before she managed to push Coyster off her lap, and stood, too.

Kamele held the packet out on the palms of her hands.

"Here is the tale of those who went before," she said solemnly. "You are the sum and the total of us. We rejoice in you, daughter, and are amazed."

Theo swallowed in a throat gone suddenly tight; stepped forward and took the packet in both hands.

"I am humbled," she said, and the phrase she had memorized as mere rote was suddenly, achingly true. "I am humbled before my ancestors, Mother, and will strive to do my best, in honor of those who went before me."

She stepped back, the packet still cradled in her hands. There was silence. Kamele's face was wet with tears, through which Theo plainly saw pride, and love – and, yes, amazement.

"Congratulations, Theo," Father said quietly. "I am proud that you are my daughter."

THE END

Afterword

Daughter of the Thing that Swallowed Georgia

or...

Why This Book is Special

All books are special. Writers invest so extravagantly in their work – time, love, money, worry – how can the result be anything other than special? To say that one story is more special than another... That's a matter of taste, really.

So, when we say that Fledgling is something a little out of the common way – special, in a word – we're referring not so much to the story you've just read, but to the circumstances of its birth.

Fledgling is a child born of necessity, fostered onto the internet, and left to soar.

That it did... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

In December 2006, it became apparent that our long-time publisher's "cash-flow problems," had impacted our household finances, and not in a good way. Our situation was on the approach to dire, and we were seriously looking at having to live outdoors – not optimum in a Maine winter. We needed to do something, fast, in order get that old cash flowing, and there's only one thing we really know how to do –

Tell stories.

The rights to the "main line" Liaden books rested with our publisher. But we had this character, this off-the-beaten-universe story, this side book that we felt – not only confident that we could write, but that it would be fun to write. Ghu knew, we needed a little fun in our lives about then.

So, we announced to our readers on the internet that we would be starting a new project: We would be writing the first draft of a novel, live on the web. We'd post the first chapter on January 22, 2007. Subsequent chapters would need to earn $300 in donations before the next was posted. Readers who donated $25 or more would receive one copy of the dead tree edition of the novel, if it was ever published.

We figured, you see, that we would start off strong, then donations would slope away, and we'd be posting a chapter every, oh, two or three weeks.

Before December was over, readers had funded ten chapters. By the time the first chapter was posted, we were committed to writing twenty weekly episodes in the life and times of Theo Waitley.

But our readers did more than donate; they took an interest – in Theo, in her problems, in her growing up, in the writing, and in the Live Journal community created to discuss the progress of the plot. They nourished the story; encouraged the heroine like fond aunts and uncles, commiserated with her, and loved her, with all her faults and foibles.

They gave Theo her wings, and they cheered when she soared.

In between it all, we had put aside enough of that flowing cash to print a paper edition of Fledgling limited to those people who had donated $25 or more, through our own small publishing company, SRM Publisher, Ltd.

By then, though, our former publisher had returned the rights to the mainline novels, and Baen Books had expressed an interest in new Liaden material.

So, we asked our agent to contact Baen, to see if there was interest in publishing Fledgling for a wider audience.

The answer was a resounding YES.

And that – all of that – is what makes this book special. What makes it... magical, really. Without the eager participation of hundreds of readers, and a publisher's willingness to try something new, you would never have met Theo.

There's more, though.

Not only did the readers nourish Theo, they nourished us; and the writing – well, we'd thought it would be fun, and it was. Maybe even a little too much fun.

In January 2008, we commenced writing the second novel about Theo Waitley, Saltation. Watch for it soon, from Baen Books.

Thank you – all of you – so very much.

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Waterville Maine January 1, 2009