Prologue

Saltation

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Contents

Acknowledgments

FIRST LEAP

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

SECOND LEAP

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

THIRD LEAP

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

SALTATION

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

*

The authors would like to extend special thanks to the following people, all of whom made Saltation a more fulfilling experience for us and helped bring these words to you:

Mike Barker, for his continued unflappable good nature, and deft touch with a wiki

Judith Tarr, who pointed out the Perfect Word

Charlie Schlenker who voiced, and Sam Chupp, who hosted and promoted the Saltation podcast

Shawna Camara and Angela Gradillas, for their ongoing promotion work in Second Life

Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books, our esteemed editor

Jennifer Jackson of the Maass Agency, our marvelous agent

The many active supporters of the Saltation online project, and especially the denizens of the Theo_Waitley Live Journal Community, who made it all happen, and happen well.

FIRST LEAP

Saltation : That which proceeds by leaps

rather than by smooth and orderly progression.

One

Shuttle Approach

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Eylot

"Conselem!"

Theo didn't think that the gentle off-center nudge of reaction jets had deserved a sneeze, much less a cuss word. And the shouts and cackles of self-important glee when the second nudge was followed by a firmer push were just mean.

"We're all gonna die!"

Theo resisted the urge to look toward the front of the shuttle, having recognized that voice. Should've known. Sighing, she rested her head resolutely against well-worn padding. She'd drawn a seat without nearby viewports and was just as happy not to be sitting with the three student pilots, their flight wings shiny on their collars, who'd started chancing her back on the Vestrin. They were coming back to Anlingdin from the Short Break, so they said, and were determined to party as long as possible.

Snickiots.

At least she wasn't alone. Apparently they didn't much care for . . . Theo squinted at the legend scrolling across the main screen: "Student Pilot Kern Vallee at controls, please strap in." Right. They didn't much care for Kern Vallee, either.

"Conselem!" the ringleader yelled again, to the loud delight of his friends.

"You know," the second-rank snickiot said, sounding way too serious. "Kern flunked his first three landings. Good thing for us he's got Ablestum and the Short Wing sitting with him. We've got a good chance of getting down in one piece!"

There was another cycle of jets then, as if the pilot was testing controls, and then a tremble followed by a push Theo judged to be fairly firm, which brought more cuss words and shrieks from the front.

Eyes closed, Theo tried to ignore the noise and mentally recited her schedule. Landing, free time, then Admin Roundup. She sighed, longingly. In a half day or less she'd be in a quiet bunk. Alone. She hadn't been properly alone since she boarded Vestrin at Delgado Station, weeks ago. At least, she'd only had to put up with the three party-boys since Rooba, two ship-days.

And the descent to Eylot, of course.

She felt the jiggle of acceleration, the twisting on her gut as front and down changed place, guessed the maneuver upcoming, and grimaced.

"Oh, no! We're in for it now!"

The punch came in four distinct bursts of power, each one bringing shouts of fake terror from the three rowdies.

Theo felt her hands curl into fists. She took a deep breath, and deliberately relaxed them, trying to distract herself by imagining Father—or, better, Captain Cho!—shutting them up. Instead, she saw Win Ton inside her closed eyelids, fingers flicking in his own binjali hand-talk rendition of regard them as mere passengers.

That thought led to others closer to her heart, and she regarded those things rather than the noise until the shuttle's very gentle touchdown on the Anlingdin Piloting Academy's own landing strip.

The newbies had been directed to the so-called passengers bay to collect their baggage, while the returning students—among them, the trio of snickiots from Vestrin—rushed off elsewhere. Theo breathed a sigh of relief. Good. That was probably the last she'd see of them—at least until year-end.

Someone jostled her, and she sighed again, this time in irritation. There was a lot of random motion going on, like everybody had a lot of energy to work off after the shuttle trip. She was feeling kind of jittery herself, like she wanted to dance and sleep at the same time. Still, milling around wasn't going to get their baggage out any sooner, so she tried to find a place to stand that was out of the way, but still gave her a good view of the gate.

The room was tall, and voices echoed noisily off of the ceiling, adding a headache-making depth to the nonstop chatter around her. She was apparently the only one among the newbies who didn't have a best friend with them. Well—her and a tall, awkward-looking girl in a bright green jacket, who was standing sort of in the middle of it all, adjusting her jacket with one hand, the other hand under her chin, like she was the only one in the bay, and wasn't too sure what to do next.

A baggage sled came through the gate, piled high with bags and crates. The crowd surged forward. Theo stood where she was, not wanting to get crushed. She could wait.

Another sled came through the gate; the crowds made way and re-formed with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of quick activity.

Theo looked about in sudden realization. This was so unlike either Delgado or Melchiza. On Delgado it felt like everyone older than her was in charge, and on Melchiza there was never any doubt who was in charge. Here, no one seemed in charge but everything was in motion. No one on guard, no one watching for miscreants, or antisocial conditions. It was . . . strange, she thought. And then she thought that she liked it, this tacit admission that they could sort themselves out. She relaxed, and watched, practicing advertency, like any good scholar, or traveler.

Around her were scores of young trainees standing by piles of baggage or looking hopelessly at the incoming field carts, watching for some last item among the confusion of the large hall. There were two large bags where the girl in the green jacket had been standing—and here she came back, dragging two more!

More carts arrived. Theo made herself stand patiently: her bag was well marked and would be easy enough to see once everything was brought in by the quick-moving workers. They all moved so easily, so much like pilots—

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, feeling more than a little bit dumb. Of course they all moved like pilots: she'd been told that most of the work at Anlingdin Piloting Academy was performed by pilots-in-training; eventually she'd be doing the same thing herself.

Looking around, Theo wondered how some of her fellow students could possibly have moved all their stuff between ship and shuttle. Could they really need piles and piles of whatever it was they'd brought?

True, she had shed some solemn tears in making the first hard decisions for herself, but as time went on she'd thought about the Melchiza trip and the extra carrying she'd done for that, and about how little of what was in her room would be going with her after she was a pilot, so it might as well stay home now. Like Coyster, and Father, and Kamele. They, like her things, would be there when she came home to visit; that would never change.

Kamele's reaction to Theo's first attempt at packing had been an astonished, "Two bags? But you have an allowance for three times that much!"

Father had laughed. "Be gentle—it is her first attempt! She'll soon learn better," he told Kamele, at the same time flashing a bright bit of hand-talk to Theo—pilot to pilot—and she'd laughed, then, though a heartbeat before she'd been ready to cry.

He'd managed to get much of the contents of her second bag into the first with astute repacking, and had eliminated other things with quick questions and comments like, "No library on Eylot?" and, "Outworld is not the same as frontier, youngster: I am almost certain that they will have tea;" and even "This mumu will be inappropriate on Eylot. Perhaps you should take your files with you and turn this back into the Wall for reuse."

She'd checked his face and seen only serious interest there: not a joke. And in the end, she'd copied her files and turned the mumu back to the Tech Department. In the end, she'd whittled things she brought to only the necessary.

Father said that pilots used the Three Pile Rule for deciding what to take with them. The first pile consisted of the things she really needed: ID, money, "your license, eventually, and a keep-safe, if you wish." Those things ought to fit into her jacket, vest or travel kit and always be to hand.

Things that she'd need later went into the second pile, and were packed in luggage.

Those things that she might need, except for extra air or water, went into the third pile—which was left behind.

Theo shifted from one foot to the other. She was getting tired of waiting in all the din and confusion, and was beginning to think longingly of her nice, quiet bunk, soon to be achieved—There!

Yet another sled came into the hall, her bag with its tag clearly visible perched on top of the pile. The gate snapped closed smartly behind it; a student work gang including—to her surprise and regret—the three troublemakers from Vestrin, ran for the cart to toss the last items off.

Ah, she thought, that explains it! The three knew exactly where their luggage was, and hauled it free with a fine disregard for physics. The surrounding bags shifted and tumbled. Her bag slid from its high perch, caught, and fell. Theo jumped forward—

Just before her bag hit the floor, one of the crew caught it, neatly and without flourish, looked down, blinked, and turned to display it to his friends. Maybe he was checking the tags, though she didn't know why they should care.

Theo continued toward them, and was almost knocked down by the tall girl in the bright green jacket, who had been looking lost earlier. She didn't look lost now. She looked mad.

"That box need not be thrown!" She sounded mad, too.

Indeed, the tallest of the three from the ship was hoisting a small box as if he meant to toss it to the floor.

He glared, put the box down hard on the cart, off-handedly caught another bag tossed to him by the stubbier guy, dropped it to the floor, and picked up Theo's bag. He made a show out of reading the tag, and laughed too loud.

"I'll take that, thank you."

Startlement.

Theo flushed; her words had come out louder than she'd expected, and into a lull in the racket of the hall, turning heads and dropping conversation levels all around.

"Yours? It's got a pilot tag on it!" This from the ringleader who'd offered, several times and pointedly, to permit Theo to accompany him—or all of them—to his cabin on the Vestrin. The oversize pilot's wings glittered on his shirt collar, just as it had when he'd leaned toward her conspiratorially on the ship, as if his offer had been some kind of favor.

"My bag." Theo nodded, trying for Kamele's crispest, most efficient voice. "Thank you."

A flick of fingers from the stubby one; quick and with an accent she wasn't sure of, though she caught the sense: Throw me now run catch back toy's bag.

"Don't!" Theo snapped, accompanying that with a slashing STOP ALL! that brought a laugh from an onlooker and a too-loudly muttered, "Miss Purity strikes again!" from the ringleader.

"And I want my box," the girl in the green jacket said imperiously. "You make me late for lunch."

The guy holding Theo's bag sat on the box and looked down at her, ignoring the girl in the jacket.

"This tag—" He held the bag up and shook it at her, like she needed help understanding which tag he was talking about. "This tag is from Melchiza, in case you don't know that. I can read the sight-code, and that's a pilot-rated clearance. I bet you don't have a pilot ID, do you? If you do, now's the time to show it. If you don't, I'm filing this as stolen."

Theo glared, and touched the patch on her jacket, that still carried her Vestrin photo pass-card and—

As if from all the walls at once came a lilting, if loud, announcement.

"Attention. Registration jitney leaves in two minutes from door four. Load now."

"This tag," Theo said, showing the strip she'd gotten at Melchiza Station, "matches that tag. I got them on Melchiza, and they're current for the Standard. My name is on both. My bag. Sir."

She spoke calmly, and the sir was almost gentle, but she couldn't stop herself from dropping into a posture of alert waiting—nor, judging by the murmurs behind her, was that lost on others. She sighed to herself. Father had warned her—

"Oho, Wilsmyth, I think you ought to give the pretty her bag," said someone Theo couldn't see. "Before she breaks you."

"I want my box!" snapped the girl in the green jacket. "Rise, oaf! I must have lunch! I must register!" She moved forward purposefully, jacket billowing.

Wilsmyth hesitated for another fraction of a second. He rose then, fast and sudden, and threw Theo's bag at her, hard. The other girl ducked beneath it to grab the box.

Theo fielded the bag one-handed, feeling a pull in her shoulder, and used the other hand to sign a curt receipt acknowledged, before she turned to seek door four.

Two

New Student Orientation

Ozler Auditorium

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

The woman in the plain grey uniform had the room's full attention as she strode about the low stage, left to right, right to left, talking at times as much to herself as to the group. The simple acts of walking on stage wearing a Jump pilot's jacket, slipping it off and casually throwing it over a nearby chair, had caught them as much as the quick hand-and-voice: Welcome and listen up. "I'm Commander Ronagy."

The basic intro was about what Theo had expected, a highly condensed repeat of the information in the school's orientation packet, but the follow-on was not.

Commander Ronagy came to the front of the stage and stood, legs braced, hands at ready, looking sternly out over the first four center rows, which was all the newbie class filled in this big auditorium.

"If you have any doubts about being here," she said soberly, "please, there's a shuttle scheduled to lift in the morning. If you're here under duress, come talk to me tonight, and we'll get you out of here as soon as we can, as neatly as we can. If you don't want to be here, we don't want you here."

Her right hand rose, fingers dancing briefly, several subdued metallic rings marking time in the spotlight, before she turned to pace again. Theo turned her head slightly and saw that tables and tray carts were being moved in the side door and rolling silently toward the back.

"I can tell you that not every pilot trainee has survived the course at Anlingdin Piloting Academy," the Commander continued. "The records speak for themselves and I suggest you avail yourselves of them if you haven't already. But you're here now, and this is what I can tell you without doubt: This will be one of the most physically and mentally challenging periods of your life. You may succumb to any of the hazards that claimed those of your less successful predecessors here at the academy: carelessness, bravado, inattention, suicide—these are the more common.

"You'll study some of the more dramatic errors in your training sims and if they don't leave you shaken, then perhaps you're in the wrong field. Our testing is designed to ensure that you're always at your peak, and always up to the next level of instruction. If you find you're falling behind, speak up."

Here she stopped in midstride, appeared to look at all the students at once and emphatically finger-yelled GET HELP. Her hands fluttered into a more subtle motion . . . she might, Theo thought, have been reminding herself of where she was in her presentation—point six.

"I can tell you that, statistically, your chance of survival and graduation is higher than the average. That's because you—this group—are something special. On the whole you're older than the school cohort groups we get for first and second semester. There's a compelling reason to start you now, rather than with the freshman class starting in a few months. Someone we trust told us you don't need to be babied or coddled, that you'll be able to do the job of becoming a pilot on your own terms. On the whole your recommendations have come directly from pilots who know you, and who are teachers in their own right.

"I can also tell you that if one of you errs to the point of death, it will greatly sadden us all, and we will mourn, but we will continue, as we have for three hundred years."

Theo caught the quick hand motion: point seven.

"Remember, yours is the interim group, and you're replacing those who washed themselves out, who flunked, who were asked not to return, who were claimed by their families for other duties, or who got drafted by their governments. Those ahead of you are technically your seniors. As we're at midyear, you will be moved into classes already in progress—and if necessary into remedial classes. Our charter with the planetary government requires the academy not only to enroll so many pilots per year, but to graduate so many a year. We are depending on you to be able to graduate, and while you'll get as much help as we can give to make you ready, your group is not supported by the general rebates and fees Anlingdin pays for local students and you'll generally not have the option to retake entire semesters."

Boy, was that ever true, Theo thought. She'd seen what the annual fee was, and it would have taken three years of Kamele's base salary to pay for her first year here . . . without Captain Cho's sponsorship she'd have never been able to enroll. And if she didn't keep her grades up, she wouldn't be able to afford to stay.

Point eight.

"If we were at the beginning of either half-term, I would be able to tell you how many of you will be sharing dormitory rooms, and give other housekeeping details. As it is, you will be scattered among existing housing arrangements, and might have anywhere from one to three other students with you. Generally, one student in each suite will clearly be the senior. Though we're not strictly military about these things—pilots are flexible, after all!—allow me to strongly suggest that the senior student be regarded as a mentor and guide, at least during your first semester. Your housing and meal information will be delivered at the tables which will be set up here while we all take advantage of the meal being laid at the back now. After the break, please have your Anlingdin cards at the ready and we'll get your piloting career under way. For the safety of all, please, no bowli balls in this room!"

There was an undercurrent of laughter as the Commander pointed out the tables piled with plates and food being being uncovered and set to serve.

The next signed but unspoken command was clearly all eat.

The buffet was surprisingly lavish, especially after the stifling sameness of Vestrin's menus. There was a mix of what Theo considered to be morning food and day food, to accommodate different personal times and preferences. Theo grabbed what looked like a cheese sandwich on dark bread, and a salad plate. Real, green vegetables! Carrots! And whole slices of tomato! She hadn't seen anything so good in weeks.

She located a vacant seat at a table for four, sent a nod and quick seat taken? to the sole occupant, a kid who was already deeply involved with a slice of pie. His unoccupied hand sent back a laconic help yourself.

"Thanks," Theo said, and parked her eatables before going off in search of a beverage.

The real tea was filed on a small table away from the coffee urns, fruit juice dispensers and carafes of water. Theo flipped open the keeper and flicked through the packets on offer. Again unlike Vestrin, which had offered Terran grades of so-called "tea," here were more familiar—and vastly more welcome!—packets interleaved with the Terran leaf.

Her hopes rose. Maybe they'd have—Yes! She grinned and plucked the packet of day tea from its cubby, turned—and all but fell into a man hardly any taller than she was. She danced sideways and made a recovery, the precious packet between her fingers.

The man smiled, and gave her a brief, pretty bow, murmuring something quick and lilting. The sound was so liquid that it took her a moment to realize that it was neither Terran—the official language of the academy—nor Trade, but Liaden.

She gave back a nod, found her hands had already asked Say again? while she blurted out in what she was sure was the wrong mode and probably the wrong tense, too, "Pardon, I have very small Liaden."

The man—the tag on his jacket read "Flight Instructor Orn Ald yos'Senchul," and the right sleeve of his crisp, tailored school jacket was empty—inclined his head.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, feeling her face heat. Using hand-talk to somebody with only one hand. Way to be advertent, Theo!

Flight Instructor yos'Senchul's fingers formed an elegant sign she read as expectations betray, while he smiled and murmured in accented Terran, "My pardon, as well. I was speaking a small Liaden jest, of two with exquisite taste who search for the same treasure." The fingers moved again, shaping the air effortlessly, Apology unnecessary.

"Oh, the tea!" Theo showed her packet. "This is the kind we drink at home."

"Is it, indeed? And you have so little Liaden?"

"Sleep learned, mostly," she confessed. "I know my accent's terrible. We speak Terran at home on Delgado, but the tea, I learned from my father."

His focus went distant a moment and the single hand signed a word she read as wifechoice. "Yes, of course. Delgado is quite cosmopolitan in its beverage choices, is it not, quite unlike . . . Melchiza."

She snorted, hands signing squashed fruitwater very nearly on their own, and he laughed.

"An excellent description, and their wines are not much better. Still, they do appreciate pilots . . . and I deduce, from rumor, that you must be Theo Waitley. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. You will be in my classes starting in two days. Enjoy your meal, and your tea!"

"Thank you, sir," she said, but he had already turned to the tea chest to make his own choice. She caught up a brew-cup and moved off to her table, now full except for her place, and felt her face heat again as she went over the encounter.

Squashed fruitwater, she thought, and sighed. There must be a better sign that that!

"Erkes!" the van driver called out. "All excellent exopilots exit energetically . . ."

Theo went down the ramp on the heels of the tall girl in the green jacket from the baggage claim. The two of them pulled their bags from the rack, Theo wordlessly helping the other girl move her ridiculous pile out of the path of vehicular traffic.

"Thank you," the girl said as the van pulled away. She looked down at Theo and nodded. "I am Asu diamon Dayez," she said, pronouncing it like she expected Theo to recognize it, which she didn't. "And you are?"

"Theo Waitley." She hefted her bag, glad all over again to have only the one to deal with. "I'm in suite three-oh-two," she said, watching Asu diamon Dayez tether her bags together.

The taller girl looked up, shaking tumbled black curls out of her eyes. "So am I." She straightened, handle in one hand, and the all-important box tucked into the crook of her left arm. "Well! Let us be off, then, to discover this suite. If you will be so good as to open the door?"

* * *

Suite 302 was no bigger, Theo thought, than the apartment she and Kamele had in the Wall back on Delgado, but it was a lot better arranged. The door opened into a common room, with chairs, table, vid-screen, and a built-in counter already sporting a coffeepot and a minioven.

At the far end of the room, to the right, was another room, door open to reveal two bunks, two desks and lots of built-in storage space. To the left was a room slightly larger than the bunk room with a single bed and its own vid-screen.

She turned as the door to the hall opened to admit Asu, who was already sliding her key away into a pocket. "It works, and a good idea to test both at once," she said, giving an approving nod, which she probably meant to be friendly, but which for some reason irritated Theo.

I must be really tired, she thought, and swallowed her irritation, as she turned away to point at the bunk room.

"Which do you want, top or bottom?"

"Surely neither," Asu said crisply, steering her baggage train toward the single room. "I shall take this one."

Theo frowned. "That's probably the senior's room, do you think?"

The other girl turned her head, eyebrows up in surprise. "And I am senior, am I not? Eighteen Standards, plus a half."

She waited, her attitude one of challenge, and it wouldn't do to have an argument with her roommate on their first day, Theo reminded herself. She shrugged, hiding the sigh. "Plus a half? You're older than me," she conceded, and Asu nodded, apparently mollified.

"Please," she said, like she was giving Theo a present, "take whichever bunk pleases you." She glanced around again, frowning slightly. "Surely this can't be all the space. I will look more closely, but first, let us be secure."

She turned to the box she had placed on the table in the joint room. Theo carried her bag into the bunk room and set it down on one of the desks.

To her eye the top bunk was the best. The storage was good—more than she needed—the lighting abundant and directional, and twin fans—

"There!" Asu exclaimed.

Theo drifted out to the joint room, more curious about what was in the mysterious box than she was willing to admit even to herself.

"What is it?" she asked, blinking at the squat console with its array of varicolored lights.

Asu stared at her. "A Checksec, of course. Didn't you bring one? I mean, we've got to be careful. People are always snooping to see when you're traveling next, and if anyone's home, and intercepting the banking and everything. You never know if someone's listening with a vibcounter, or using a chipleak detector, or tapping net-calls. I mean, you can with a Checksec . . . but without one, all your business is public."

"But we're—" Theo swallowed the rest of her protest, suddenly remembering the "bug" Win Ton has found on board the Vashtara. Maybe Asu had a point, after all, she thought, warming to her roomie slightly.

That glow had faded by the time Asu had gone on to explain—at length—how in her house each room had a Checksec and they got calibrated every five days, and moved about randomly as well, so that anyone trying to spoof one would have a very hard time. And . . . it all sounded like too much trouble to Theo. She excused herself as soon as the Checksec had shown all its eyes green, which Asu said meant they were clean, "For now," she'd added darkly; and went to get settled in to quarters.

Some time later, Theo sat very much at home on the top bunk, marveling at the amount of unused storage still available to her, wondering what else she might want to own here that would fill up the space. Chaos, the counter in the joint room had a coffeepot already, and if she could get a tea maker she'd have storage for all that tea Father had suggested she not bring. Well fuff on him, she thought—and smiled.

Father had been right about her packing, she allowed, and she was glad not to have done all the huffing and puffing that others of her classmates had—

From next door came yet another scrunching noise, and perhaps a swear word she didn't know. Asu was still at work trying to fit a house's worth of goods into a closet's worth of space, now that she was finished setting up her Checksec. Honestly, you'd think there wasn't a Safety Office on Asu's world, whatever it was.

"Oh, Theo, come see!" Asu called.

Theo sighed, but in the interest of keeping peace, slid off her bunk and went to see.

The alcove room had a single bed, with a large expanse of wall behind it. That wall was now adorned with a life-sized—or maybe, Theo thought on quick second appraisal—a larger than life-sized image of a lusty nude young man with amazing ear jewelry, among other fine and entirely visible qualities, standing in front of what must be an ocean.

"Ah . . ." Theo managed, trying to recall the information about decorating campus suites that had been in the school's orientation materials.

"Yes," Asu said, smugly. "Jondeer had much the same effect on me when I first met him dressed like this on the Ridyea beach. How was I to know he was a full member of the Bovar System Scavage A-Team?"

Theo laughed despite herself—"Well, you could say he was out of uniform, couldn't you?" She sighed, and managed a calm question. "Don't you think he'll be . . . distracting?"

"No, I think Jondeer will be inspiring! After all, once I have my own pilot's license I'll be able to travel to his games whenever I like! You know, he has a pic of me that he puts up in his locker everywhere he goes! I've seen it in the background of his game interviews!"

Theo remembered now. The instructions about images had been particularly clear: Display only group-appropriate images within view of an open door, always use academy-issued hanger tabs . . .

But, she reminded herself . . . maybe first day wasn't the time to start an argument. And clearly, someone who was swapping perspix with a top-line scavage player had a lot more experience than she did. Though maybe not, she thought, the kind of experience that was going to make her much by way of that "mentor and guide" Commander Ronagy had mentioned.

Theo sighed as she clambered back to her bunk. Well, the Commander had also said that they were expected to be self-sufficient.

It wasn't like there wasn't stuff to do, so she'd be ready for tomorrow and her first classes. She turned on her commlink and keypad, set up her accounts, checked again to make sure she'd stowed everything, and memorized where she'd put what. Her single piece of luggage had a cubby to itself, and she still had three left over. She felt a small glow of satisfaction. Other than being light-years from home, missing Coyster and Father and Kamele and Win Ton and Cho and Bek, she was in good shape.

She closed her eyes. More noise and mutters came from the other room, in spite of which she felt like she could almost go to sleep. But it was too early, local time, to go to sleep, and besides, she was too twitchy. There was a school store. Maybe she'd go down and see if they had a tea maker and tea. That would use up some of the undirected energy and make the place feel a little more like home.

A chime sounded, under the racket that Asu was making. Theo looked around, frowning, but there was no repeat. Shrugging, she swung down from the bunk. Maybe she could go for a walk around Erkes Quad; familiarize herself, and get a little peace.

The door to the hall snapped open, and one of the rude crew from the Vestrin—the third-string guy, stocky and quieter than the other two—stepped inside, and stopped, staring around at the disarray of Asu's unpacking, shock apparent on his face.

"What are you doing here?" Theo demanded. "We set the locks!"

He didn't even spare her a glance, his attention focused on the open door to Asu's room, and the abundant display of male flesh plainly visible, his hands moving insistently remove please remove please remove please.

"Who are you?" Asu demanded, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips and a mighty frown on her face. "You disturb our privacy!"

"I'm Chelly Frosher," he said, sounding rushed, but surprisingly firm. "I got nine semesters in grade, so I'm senior here. I rang, but you didn't answer, so I used my key. The locks override to my card," he said pointing at the door and waving his card around. "This here will be my quarters, um, Miss. And that," he continued, pointing more or less toward Jondeer's insouciant grin, "won't meet community standards here at Erkes. This is your basic local frosh house, except for us and the house father. Some of these kids are underage. So, take it down, and move into your bunk. Thanks."

Three

Erkes Dormitory

Suite 302

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

"Bunk?" Asu raised one hand from her hip and used it to sweep the room, like she was proud of the mess she'd made and was putting it on display. "Does this look to you like it will fit into a bunk?"

Chelly shrugged. "Not my problem," he said. "Getting into my quarters so I can grab a little downtime before class, that's my problem."

"There is a bunk available," Asu told him, with a false sweetness that set Theo's teeth on edge. "I'm sure Theo will be glad to show you."

"Look," Chelly began, his shoulders tensing up toward his ears, and it really wasn't, Theo thought, a good idea to fight on their first night together.

She went two steps closer to where the pair of them were staring at each other like two cats trying to see which one could blow themselves up bigger.

"He's senior," she said.

Two pairs of eyes—one blue, one brown—focused on her, which was what she'd wanted, she reminded herself, swallowing.

"Excuse me?" Asu asked, still in that too-sweet voice that was all out of sync with posture that said she was one grab short of throwing something.

"He's senior," Theo repeated. "Nine semesters in grade, didn't you hear him say?" She pointed at the joint room screen. "You can probably look him up in records if you think he's smoking us."

"Smoking—" Chelly blinked at her. "Why would I bother?"

"Why'd you bother on Vestrin, you and the rest of your crew?" Theo snapped back. "It's not like you've never gotten a note in your file."

"Do I look that stupid?" Chelly demanded, but his fingers were already signing, Message received. He stalked over to the screen, slammed his card into the reader and spun the unit round to face them.

Student ID 439285

Frosher Chelly

Meal Plan

Study Score: 23

S1 Erkes 302

Student Pilot Rating: 3.5

"Satisfied?" he asked, mostly at Asu.

There was silence, not nearly, Theo assured herself, as long or as heavy as she thought it was before Asu sighed sharply, nodded once and turned to peel Jondeer off the wall.

"Are there no beaches on this backward, benighted planet?" Asu demanded sometime later. Her stuff was mostly unboxed now; the joint room was awash in things, as was every available flat surface in the bunk room and most of the floor. She looked tired and sounded tireder, with a side helping of torqued off.

Theo, who was tired herself and not feeling exactly calm, couldn't work up much sympathy for her, especially since she'd seen the taller girl eying Theo's extra space.

"That," she'd said, pointing at her shelves and built-ins, "is my storage. Yours is down below."

"There is less down below!"

"There's exactly the same amount of storage space for high bunk and low," Chelly said grumpily from the doorway. He shook his head in, as Theo read it, equal parts amazement and disgust. "What's with the beach? You thinking you earned a vacation?"

Asu turned her back on him. "I am thinking that Jondeer's picture was taken at the beach, and that he is garbed appropriately," she said icily. "Surely even the youngest student here has been to the beach."

"If it was a picture of the beach with a guy in it, that maybe would've passed," Chelly said, and it sounded as if he really was trying to explain the problem. "This is a picture of a guy that happens to have some beach in it. Whole different perspective."

Theo snorted, and Chelly turned his head to glare up at her.

"You wanna finish out the course, you better lose some of that attitude, Waitley."

This from a guy who'd been making her life miserable for the last—Theo sat up, face hot. "What's the matter with my attitude?"

"That's what!" he yelled. "You think nobody noticed you daring Wil to come dancing, there at baggage? You think maybe you don't already have a note by your name that you got aggression problems?"

"I've got aggression problems?" Theo shook her head and just stared down at him, absolutely unable to believe what she'd just heard.

"I—all right." She took a breath, and another one, centering herself there on the bunk and letting the tension—well, as much of the tension as she could, flow out of her toes and fingertips.

"Look, Chelly," she said, over Asu's slamming open storage bays. "I don't know what people saw. What I know is that Wilsmyth was trying to make trouble for me. I don't know why, but I don't need to know why to know that he was, from the very first time I saw him, on Vestrin. From my perspective, he was trying to get me to lose my temper, or maybe get me in trouble with Admin for having a stolen bag, like he said. If I was edgy, I think that's reasonable. And I think anybody who saw me drop to neutral would also have seen why I did it." She took a breath. "So, there might be a note in my file. It wouldn't be the first time. And I'm probably not alone."

Chelly chewed his lip, and looked over his shoulder into the joint room. "Wil gets chaizy when he's not working," he muttered. "He'll buckle, now there's work." He sighed, and shook his head, looking back to Asu.

"You'd think somebody whose family owns tradeships would know how to pack," he said.

Head and shoulders inside the bottommost storage compartment, Asu sniffed. "We own them," she said, her voice echoing hollowly, "we do not live on them."

"Yeah, well, you think you'll have all this stuff stowed soon? It's gotta be put away—those're regs, and if the house father does an inspect while you're at class, he can clean up anything that's not in its place." He grimaced. "He gets a real buzz outta cleaning up after newbies."

"Thank you," Asu said, emerging carefully from the compartment, and sitting back on her heels. She ran a hand through her damp curls. Unfairly, they sprang neatly back into place, unlike Theo's hair, which had frizzed out into its most uncombable.

"Were you in this room . . . last semester?" Theo asked Chelly, and then wondered why she cared.

He nodded. "Yeah. I was top bunk. Panvay was senior—she challenged out. Tildenburg was low bunk—he flunked out. Finally."

"Finally?" That final word even caught Asu, who gave Chelly an over-the-shoulder look.

"Yeah, he should've been outta here before the end of his second semester, but his family paid the fee and convinced Ronagy he'd stick with the program. Only he just did the same thing over again, like he couldn't help himself, and flunked again, just like the first time and—that was it." He shook his head. "It wasn't like Pan didn't tell him, or like he didn't know, it—" Another head shake. "Didn't want to be a pilot, is what it came down to. His parents, they wanted it. Tildenburg, he wanted to be a poet."

"A person may be both a poet and a pilot," Asu said soberly.

"Not," Chelly answered, "if you only work on the poet side." He looked around again and shook his head.

"Look," he said. "I am the senior and I'm telling you this straight—" His hands moved lightly: affirm, affirm. "You gotta get this stuff stowed and get some downtime. When you start on-mester you get a couple days' slack while you catch on to things, 'cause everybody's slow and sleepy, see? But the off-shift—you guys are gonna go into classes that are already moving and they're gonna expect you to run to keep up—and no whining. I'm telling you."

"Thanks," Theo said. "But why are you telling us?"

He looked up at her, strong eyebrows pulled over blue eyes. "I'm senior," he repeated. "And I'm on command track. If you two screw up, it's gonna go against me, too."

Asu laughed.

Chelly glared at the back of her head, then transferred his glare to Theo, who did her best to keep her face neutral.

"I'm going to bed," he said, turning away. "Try to get sensible, right?"

"Sleep well, Chelly Frosher," Asu caroled brightly. He didn't answer, and Theo really couldn't blame him.

"Why'd you laugh when he said he'd get marked down if we flunked out on his watch?" Theo asked as Asu climbed to her feet.

The taller girl put her elbows on Theo's bunk and smiled.

"He admits to an interest," she said, around a yawn. "Therefore, we have leverage."

"Oh," Theo said, and looked over the edge of the bunk at the wreckage below. It seemed to her that Asu had managed to get an astonishing amount of stuff stowed while seeming to be ineffective. Unfortunately, that still left a lot to put . . . somewhere.

"Theo, I cannot help but notice that you have unused space," Asu said, and Theo sighed.

"We've been—" she began, and blinked, remembering the dusty smell of rugs and an old woman's voice: No dickering here, I see!

She considered the side of Asu's face, and decided the other girl looked at least as tired as she felt. The sooner the stuff got put away, the sooner they both could get some rest after what had become a really, really long day.

"You want some of my extra storage?" she asked Asu. The other girl smiled.

"It would be a boon."

"No, it wouldn't," Theo corrected her, and reached out to tap two of the three empty cubbies. "Trade for them."

Asu raised her head and stared at the mess all around, before looking seriously into Theo's face.

"I cannot promise or incur a debt in the name of Diamon Lines," she said finally, hands giving emphasis to the point.

"Diamon Lines isn't sleeping in the bunk below mine," Theo said. "I want an IOU, redeemable at a future time for one favor. Deal?"

Once again, Asu glanced about her. She sighed, and held a hand out to Theo.

"Done," she said, barely touching Theo's fingers before reaching past her to open the first empty cubby.

Four

Academy Flight GT S14

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Slipper Fourteen felt like home today; no longer an alien environment to be overcome but a friendly, trusted place, a place without the constant sniping between Asu and Chelly, a place where her motions were simple and sufficient, a place where the instructor looked over her shoulder only by instrument, his voice brought to her by the ear bud, and that not often; she'd wondered these last five flights if he'd monitored her at all.

The craft's cockpit was tiny, hardly more than a stiffly padded lay-back seat and some hand controls and pedals yoked electrically to the airfoils, with a tight-sealed canopy a hand's-width in front of her face that let the wind slip past. Boarding it was like slipping into her proper skin, especially with the belt-web forming itself to her so carefully after she touched the locking stud.

The tow drone's pace was sufficient for her to test her skill at boxing the wake without being bored: she moved to the right with the tow rope taut, then down below the wake, then left to the other side of the box, up, and centered again, the whole while using her slip-string to help guide her by sight as the other instruments.

Otto El, the glider instructor, insisted that each trainee bring and mount their own slip-string; just as he insisted that each trainee personally inspect the craft before each takeoff and after every landing.

"It is good to see what you have done," he'd told the small assembled class of five on their first meeting, "and it is good to see that your vessel is able before you trust your life and the lives of others to it!"

The slender wings were well behind Theo's position as the Slipper rose; today's preflight inspection had shown the outer left wing stained and scraped—grass stains. She'd immediately entered that into her logbook, lifted the wing to inspect it, attempted to flex it and probed at it with her hand and stylus. Pilot El had nodded as she made her verbal report and inquired about it.

"Yes, good. There was an awkward moment for someone in a crosswind landing yesterday; we've imaged it and everything is fine. You'll find it noted in the ship's log."

By the third class they'd lost two of their class members, one apparently to basic homesickness and the other to something Asu darkly called a "hyper-dense Code Ten Fifty-Six"—but there, Asu had been in three much larger classes with the boy. The Ten Fifties were the mental fitness codes if Theo recalled correctly, and the result was that Pilot El was pleased to go on an accelerated one-on-one with the remaining three students.

"We can all move to the power segments much faster now," he said, "and you three, very soon, will be able to walk with wings on your shoulders."

The wings he promised were more than metaphysical: while some of the astronautics group went without the atmospheric license, deeming it a useless artifact, there was, after all, still a living to be made in flying atmospheric and near-world craft.

The drone's beeped report echoed what Theo'd already felt: they were comfortably topped out and had a good steady flight, and maybe a chance to ride the front wave down Kirky's Range.

"Academy Flight GT S14," came a trainee's bored voice, "you're set for release in fifteen ticks at my mark. We've got your transponders in good order, you've got great Qs, and the designated landing zone is South, runway seven. Mark!"

Great Qs meant the clouds favored a long flight; she was all for it since the longer she stayed up the longer she could avoid going back to Erkes. Asu busy was better than Asu with nothing to do, but still she found time to complain about how little room she had, about being stuck in with the Erkes kids whenever she used the jitney, and with a litany of Anlingdin security weaknesses . . .

"Mark, thank you, GT S14 acknowledges."

Theo watched the slip-string as she raised the nose a bit, allowing the tow rope just a bit of slack and then just a bit more. She touched the rudder to dip wing, pushed the stick slightly forward, and the rope went from lifeline to fluttering ribbon, bearing to the right, and away. The slip-string snapped, like it was waving good-bye, and Theo sighed with the joy of finally being free to fly.

Slipper Fourteen gained speed for a moment until Theo leveled it out and then saw the variometer happily indicating she'd hit the thermal. Her key in the flight system jauntily blinked blue once a second, indicating her flight time was logged and mounting properly, and everything else looked good.

Everything. From here, Anlingdin was beautiful, and even the grounds of the academy, spreading out toward the horizon, were worth seeing. Out the other side of the ship the mountain range stood stark and compelling, the blue-grey peaks casting sharp-edged shadows.

She laughed out loud, and suppressed the urge to shout, suddenly mindful of Asu's warnings.

"Remember, Theo, every mic is live at all times. We're all right here, in our suite, because the Checksec will warn us if we're monitored. But out there? Galosh, they can hear everything you say about everyone, and then hold everything against your record."

Theo'd wondered who'd twisted Asu's hair that time . . . but after all, Melchiza did it, and Delgado did it; everybody was always watched by somebody, for the good of everybody else.

She laughed again, as she looked about her, seeing nothing but blue sky and wonderfully large and billowing clouds. They hadn't outlawed happy at the academy, and flying was a happy thing.

"Flight GT S14, Academy GT S14, acknowledge."

Not flight control, but her instructor. He was paying attention!

"Flight GT S14 here."

"Waitley, this is El, on special from control; how quickly can you get down?"

Theo's glance swept the board, gathered in the variometer and altitude; she consulted the map display and clicked the direct route . . . she'd hardly been worried about getting down fastest; in fact soaring had been working well and she'd been thinking about filing an amendment to extend her time.

"Ship says at standard descent . . . sixteen minutes, unless I get an updraft."

"Won't do. Want you out of the sky—everyone out of the sky quickly . . . emergency."

Theo looked away from the instruments, across the sky, to the eminence of Kirky's Range. Local history had it that the first traveler from space had used its spine and plateau as a pointer for his rescuers . . .

Out of the sky . . .

"I can stuff it on the plateau in five minutes."

Her hands and feet followed her eyes, as if she leaned toward the promontory.

There was no reply, and she repeated, watching the slip-string on the canopy as it flowed in reply to the ship's bank and turn. Who would've thought that simple piece of yarn could be so useful?

"GT S14 here, please ack—"

"Can you?" The query overrode her. "El here. That's tricky, Waitley, lots of updrafts. Acknowledge."

The ship was already gaining speed as she pushed the stick forward. The plan was . . .

"I can," she said, absolutely sure of it. "If you want me down quickest. Acknowledge."

Again a pause, but now she realized Instructor El was thinking hard. She was thinking hard, too—while the way was clear to the mountain, even the Doppler radar setting might not be enough for the tricky currents she'd be facing.

"Bad spot, Waitley. Report before you set down; be prepared to abort on my command. I won't jostle your elbow otherwise. Acknowledge."

Theo smiled. "Acknowledged."

She'd cruised distantly along the standing wave the mountains created just once before, in the trainer, when she'd had Pilot El in the second seat. That had brought flutters to her stomach and twinges to her hands as she'd felt the strength of the up-draft.

This time she was going to use that updraft; sideslipping the ship several times to lose altitude, and then: yes!

There was the wave! The slip-string fluttered momentarily and the variometer showed a sudden change in the ship's motion. Even though the nose was pointed slightly downward, the whole column of air she was in was rising rapidly. Noise multiplied in the cockpit as the variometer began to sound a rising pitch, while the automaton intermittently spoke rate-change numbers. The most important thing was the rising pitch . . .

Ahead, the mountain's dark color began to differentiate into rugged columns of weathered rock and deep shadowed crevices.

She'd never had to read the radar so hard before; the twisting currents swept the sleek glider higher, closer to the mountain with each second. Designed for simple soaring, the great wings seemed to chuckle at this unexpected task, the sound unnerving, as they trembled in the troubled air column.

More than three minutes had passed according to the ship's chronometer; she was sweating, listening for the call to abort, fighting to keep the nose pointed in the right direction against wind that made the plane crab and shudder. Her goal was only a minute or so higher; she knew that once she reached the top her work would really begin.

There came a lull in the buffeting, but she wasn't comforted because the rock face loomed. She was close enough now that the fuselage might easily fit into a crevice if air willed it; the beautiful wings she loved so much now as much of a problem as an asset.

Warnings went off: too much lift, too close to the mountain, stall warning . . .

Theo worked to shut out the sounds of the winds and the warnings: she could only ride this out. She would ride this out. She only—there!

The top of the plateau appeared to her left. She sideslipped the craft in that direction, fighting a wicked crosswind that wanted to twist her wings.

Unexpectedly, she continued to rise. She forced the nose down, arms shaking with the effort. The top of the plateau was pocked with wind-worn gullies and rippled dust, but her biggest problem wasn't finding a place to land but in forcing the Slipper into actually setting down.

She had underestimated the winds, she thought. Or overestimated her own ability.

"Not great, Theo," she muttered, "not great."

Then she saw a spot and caught a lull in the wind.

"Waitley, GT S14," she snapped at the comm. "Setting down immediately."

She almost managed it, but her wings built their own ground effect in the jostling wind and the plane hovered as she hit spoilers and then did one more very slight sideslip to meet the ground. The Slipper stayed down, then, roiling grass and gravel, coming to rest on an incline that became a slope that ran out into the abyss below. Distantly, and far below, was a blur of green that was flat land.

"GT S14 here. Down."

She had an immediate acknowledgment. "Waitley, El acknowledging GT S14 down on Kirky's Range. Now, if you can pop that canopy, get out of the plane and find yourself a safe spot to sit. Give me ten minutes, then call back."

What she said was, "Acknowledge."

What she thought was harder: if this whole thing was some weird part of training she had an idea why pilots washed out. A more stupid way to . . .

The canopy stopped resisting as she hurled some off-mic invective at the world, and then she was too busy keeping dust out of her face to think—

A new sound assaulted her as she tumbled out of the plane: a chunking noise like one of Father's old auto engines gone wrong, then a whoosh and another round of chunking noises.

A bright sidewise flash caught her eye: aircraft in the sun. Not just one, but a group of three or four. Now five. They were nearly as high as she was! She wondered if they were there looking for her, but then—

The chunking noise came again and she saw bright streams of fiery dots blast from one of the jets, and then from a second; there was another bright flash then and the lead plane roared low overhead, trailing smoke and debris, while the others . . .

Understanding rushed through her: this was the emergency!

She flung herself between two boulders as the other planes flashed by, and from the corner of her eye she caught a multiple flash, turning her head in time to see the lead plane, already well on the other side of the mountain ridge, explode in a brilliant flare of metal and flame, and fall out of her line of sight.

* * *

"Do you know what they've done? They've stolen my safety! They ransacked my security! They've . . ."

Theo stood stock-still, and closed her eyes against the noise. She'd been interviewed three times by officials. Her bona fides had been checked at least three times. She'd had very little to eat for the last half-day, she was tired, and she needed to put her day bag down before she used it as a weapon.

Chelly's door was closed. Theo strode past it, wondering what was going on now. She'd anticipated being asked questions, not being beset—

"I told you! I told you these people weren't good at security! Did you think we needed a Checksec? No. Does our senior leader think we need a Checksec? No. So what are we going to do about—"

Theo barged by Asu, swept into the bedroom and swung her bag to the top bunk.

"I mean, here they call a campus security alert and ask everyone to stay in room and then they won't even answer a simple theft call . . ."

Goaded, Theo turned, and Asu stepped hurriedly back.

"He's right, you know?" Asu gasped "Chelly's right! When you do that, you do look like you're looking for a fight . . ."

Asu started, backed against the door.

He stood there in person suddenly, gingerly stepping in from his room, his face an uncertain mask of tight muscles under blotched skin, framing tired eyes. Uncharacteristically he wore a sleeveless workout shirt—he'd been doing his best to keep the formal edge on his attire ever since he'd been invited to join the—

Theo couldn't remember what it was called right now; it was a bunch of gonna-be commanders, all at work being official.

His hands were carefully neutral, as were his shoulders.

"I just got word that you'd been released, Waitley," he said quietly. "The rumor was that you'd been shot down, or crashed on the mountain. Is there anything we can do for you?"

"The rumor was what?" Asu demanded. "Why didn't you tell me? What is going on?"

Theo moved, slowly, hands also carefully neutral, only half suppressing the sigh she felt weighing on her.

"Yes, Chelly, you can do something for me. Break out some cheese and biscuits, make some tea. I'm not gonna take this stuff they gave me, if I can help it; I got math first thing in the morning and I need to stay sharp."

"Tea. Tea." He said it like it was an alien concept.

Asu shut up and looked between the pair of them as if she just now recognized that Chelly and Theo were both distressed, and not about the Checksec.

"Yes," she said then, "I see!" She hurried out of the room, calling out, "I know your tea setting, Theo. Chelly, you get the biscuits down; if you need to, you may open my cheese."

Theo sat on Asu's bunk and slowly pulled off her shoes and her socks. Who knew that the ancient wooden floor in Erkes would feel so good to bare feet?

Five

Combined Math Lab

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Math 376 was a relief so far, even with a drill. Eight students and an instructor stand-in were in the Math Lab already; soon they'd be joined by an assistant and the lab section from Math 366, all students who weren't taking an atmospheric component in their training, and maybe even by the instructor herself.

Surprisingly, the drill had helped settle Theo; this time it didn't involve any of the head-spinning dual-reality arithmetic in which numbers had to be solved for both real and imaginary components at the same time they were solved for string expansion and entropy resistance.

She still wasn't sure she wanted to risk her life on her computations, but just to be busy without having Chelly's quiet grief hanging over her head was good, not to mention being free of Asu's sulky nattering about her confiscated Checksec. Asu's paranoia hadn't been helped by Chelly keeping his secret until the second cup of tea—

"What kind of a senior are you if you don't keep us informed? Especially when one of our own . . . well, no, just because he'd slept in our pod doesn't make him ours—this Hap Harney—but Theo's ours and you didn't even tell me and she sleeps right over my head?"

"Chain of command," he'd said quietly. "You always have to remember chain of command, Asu. Suppose I'd told you everything and then they'd come for your Checksec instead of the other way around? You might have been in big trouble. And yeah, I think it's good that you didn't know Hap Harney's name until just now: again, think what it would look like if I'd have said something earlier and then you'd gone talking to those youngsters you've been coaching in bowli ball? The whole of Erkes could be under a cloud then. Now the news is out."

Asu'd fumed and fretted; it had taken Theo explaining her view of the whole thing. "I think he was trying to lose them," she'd said, from her new, in-depth understanding of the wind shear problems right there. "I think he knew the mountain from when he was at the academy and was figuring he could break away, gain time—for whatever he was trying to do."

She hadn't explained that one of the planes had strafed the falling pieces, nor that she'd noticed that none of the military guys who'd landed with the copter had their sidearms on peace-bond. She'd come out from between her boulders when they landed, identified herself, and then had to listen . . .

"She's got guts and the goods, bringing that thing down in here with no auxiliary," one had said, and then another, "Right convenient it could have been, too, for Harney, heh? Drop himself off here, then glide off with a cutie while we're looking for his body?"

"You run the gonsarned thermal, then. There's nothing here but her and a cold ship. All pure."

Volunteer nothing to an official, she'd remembered Father saying then, as he had several times when listening to her retelling of her time on Melchiza. When you're in their power, bureaucrats can be more dangerous than a loaded gun. A gun hits the target you aim at. Bureaucrats are another story.

She'd kept quiet, then, and was startled when the copter pilot asked if she'd like a turn at the controls once they'd left Slipper Fourteen and the mountains well behind. She'd been watching—what else was there for her to do?—and taking in the whole process, but . . .

"No, sir. I mean, yes sir—I would. But I don't have any power hours at all and probably I shouldn't."

"Hah, that's great! No hours at all and they made you land that feather up there? Somebody's in need of pilot refresh if you ask me!"

There were chuckles from a couple of the others in the machine, and the pilot himself flashed a quick top landing, making sure she'd caught it before going into a monologue on the good and bad points of hovering vehicles . . .

But that would have been too much to tell Asu, and they'd told Theo not to talk about the questions they asked: had she known Hap Harney, had she been told to fly to the mountain, why had she selected that spot, why had she hidden in the rocks—which of course she hadn't, really. They'd gone on and on and on about how long had she been on-world and did she have any opinions on the coming elections and would she call someone who died stupidly a hero just because he'd died and . . . they were amused, somewhat, that the only drink she accepted was from the water fountain.

So she'd hoped Asu would give over on that topic and Chelly—well, he'd helped, actually. He'd had some idea of what she'd been through—apparently he'd had his time with the authorities when the security team came through.

"Asu, I didn't give them your Checksec, they turned it off the moment they saw it and said it was a potential violation of the privacy regs."

"Violation? What's wrong with active protection? Everyone knows you have to take care of yourself! What about my privacy?"

That, it turned out, had been the rub.

Chelly's voice was low and firm while he was talking about it, and he lost some of the blotchiness that looked like it might have come from tears.

"Your Checksec's a pro model, Asu. It not only blocks within a perimeter, but it probes any signals it finds and records them. The thing is, it kept trying to connect to the network so it could report somewhere."

Asu's face and neck darkened; her mouth opened as if she were going to say something, but it took several jaw movements and some hand motions as well before she could articulate anything more understandable than, "Oh no. . . ."

Finally: "I didn't even think! That's the Checksec Jivan gave me—she's head of Security for Diamon. You don't think it was trying to report, do you?"

Chelly's glance may have struck the ceiling before Theo's, but as they looked down at Asu they both shrugged.

Chelly's shrug had turned into a slow hand to the side of his face.

"Could have been calling in, what do I know? I do know that they came in here and swept the place three times, then ran off and did the rest of Erkes. Harney's time here—I guess they had to check everything, since he'd been senior when I got here."

"Same room as us? Right here? In our beds?" Asu's eyes widened.

Chelly hand-talked, Yes, right, right, yes.

"I'll need to get some smutch in then. Bad luck to sleep in a dead man's bed, you know . . ."

It was then that the exhaustion really hit Theo, and she'd wished, very much that she'd had a certain Scout pilot to . . . talk to. Or something. Even Bek. He wouldn't have understood the piloting problems, but he would have made sure she relaxed.

Lying in the top bunk, she smiled. Bek had been a good onagrata, even though they'd both gone into the First Pair knowing they'd each be going off in different directions.

Despite the tea or because of it, she'd slept deeply, if alone, and managed to get up and dress without waking Asu, whose schedule put her on late-day, and took herself to math class, adding a note to shop for tea on the joint to-do list.

Math drill done, and filed, Theo looked around. Others were still at work, which was something she was used to from the Wall, so she did some calculations in her head, trying to keep herself from remembering that there'd been a live pilot in that craft—somebody Chelly had known—trying to concentrate on the drill's final question, which to her mind had two mutually antagonistic answers. She'd chosen the simple one, of course.

Visualizing the other one—no, well, she probably shouldn't use the desk for that, not with others around her still working. She resorted then, like she had at the Wall, to her needle. She slipped it and a length of thread out of a cargo pocket, and bent to work, stretching out a point on the fabric here, and one there . . . and after all, since the fabric was malleable and penetrable she could consider that the needle might be the spaceship and the . . .

The sounds around her changed, which probably meant the rest of the class was finished with the drill. Theo glanced up. Peering at her from the next row was the instructor herself, Pilot Truffant.

"No, Trainee, please don't let me interrupt your work. I'm sure it must be fascinating."

Theo felt her face warm, but she had, she thought, earned some sarcasm. After all, it wasn't very advertent to be discovered doing needlework in math class. The low laughter of her classmates didn't help.

She took a breath and answer the instructor calmly.

"Yes, Pilot."

The instructor moved closer.

"Good, good. We'd hate for you to be bored, here at Anlingdin. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain why, in the face of your incoming scores, you find this a compelling way to follow up on a drill."

"Yes, Pilot," Theo said. "I was thinking about the last question on the drill. The work here," she raised the unfinished lacework, "was helping me think."

"Very good. The needle-and-haystack approach to space navigation, I take it?"

Theo looked at the instructor. She seemed more amused than taunting.

"I'm not familiar with the term," Theo admitted, while some few in the class sputtered. "But, on the drill, there was the answer I thought you wanted, and then there was the second answer. I needed—"

"Enough!"

But Theo had already stopped, obedient to Pilot Truffant's hand-talked stop.

"You intrigue, Waitley. Please hold your work a moment."

The instructor turned to the larger class.

"The rest of you are done with the drill. How many were concerned about the 'second answer'?"

No one moved or spoke; the instructor glanced down at her handheld readout and said finally, "This is excellent. All of you have the final answer right. I salute!"

She fit action to words, saluting in all directions, and then leaned toward Theo, face intent.

"The answer I expected is the one you gave," she said quietly. "Now, what does your needle say about the second answer?"

Theo looked down at her work, and then up at the instructor again, grimacing as she tried to put words to thoughts. There were more sounds around as several of the lab students from the other class drifted in, pushing a small materials cart.

"The easy answer," she said after a moment—"that answer is missing a dimension somehow. That is, it is right as far as it goes, so I'm glad I have that. But we're—see, the string-contraction effect needs to be in here; it may be negligible on a clean-paper arithmetic run but we can't assume that's what we have and—"

The hand-talked sharp thought hold mouth hold came quickly, and then:

"Enough, Waitley, enough. You anticipate a lesson some days in the future. I hope you'll have time after the lab to discuss your cloth computer with me."

"Now, Waitley," said Pilot Truffant, "the drill's fine and so is your lab. You just finish that up on your time this evening. I wanted to tell you that I looked at your flight profile from yesterday. You made some wide-awake choices there, some challenging choices. I think that flight'll be flown a few times in the next semester or two, in sim and for real. While I could have done it in your five minutes I'm not sure there's more than a dozen on campus who could have matched it, all things considered."

Truffant cleared the lab stuff away cheerfully, and then insisted:

"Really, I'd like you to show me that other solution you were working on. I've banned an abacus, an antique slide-stick, three kinds of subvocal calculators, and a pet norbear from class in the past. Now I wonder if I have to ban needles and string."

Six

Lunch Break

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

"You walk everywhere, don't you?"

"Did the soldiers threaten you?"

"Were you scared?"

"How did you get the Slipper to do that?"

"Are you sleeping with anyone?"

The girl who asked that got poked in the ribs by the young man next to her. That sparked some laughter and ribaldry which gave Theo a chance to catch her breath and take a sip without looking like she wasn't paying attention.

If any of the questions surprised her more than any others she couldn't say; the good news was that a couple of the crowd were kind enough to use recognizable hand-talk, and that gave her something to concentrate on, besides trying to eat.

They'd walked her in to the lunch room like she was leader of the pack, but partly it might have been to make sure no one else joined them.

All of them were from the math lab; all had been at the school longer than she had and they all wanted to be close to her, where before they barely acknowledged her.

She managed to answer some questions.

"I wasn't scared," she said after another sip of whatever soft drink someone brought her, "because I was just too busy." Here she interjected with her hands, pointing toward the could-be instrument panel and signing updown, north, wind speed, drift, drift, updown, clock.

"The order came and I had to find a way to get the ship out of the air, and the mountain was nearest . . .

"Afterwards, then I was shaky and wanted to dance!"

For some reason that prompted laughter, and she grabbed a bite as people quieted and then looked as the youngster—she recognized him as one of the Erkes local students—blurted into the silence, "You always walk so fast and . . ."

She agreed, nodding in his direction. "I do. I like to walk, but there's not really enough time to just take a hike, and I'm usually a little late . . ."

Again, some laughter and smiles, and the pair staring back and forth at each other with furtive hand-talk that looked like Later alone ask and an assent and . . .

"But the Slipper was great," she said, getting back to another question, "except I'd never landed in that kind of a head wind before. I really had to trick her down with a sideslip . . ."

Here Theo demonstrated with a hand motion and a swing of the shoulders and then a dual slide of hands toward the tabletop. Then she laughed, doubling the attention on her.

"The only time I worried about the soldiers is when I made them hold the Slipper and one didn't understand so good about paying attention. He let the starboard wing loose before I got the tiedowns set and it almost clipped his nose."

"You made the soldiers help?"

Theo snickered.

"Did I have a choice? You think I'm going to let a school Slipper fall off a mountain if I can help it? They insisted I was going with them, and right away, but the rotor pilot, he told them I was right, the ship needed to be tied down else it might run into his machine at liftoff. So yes, the soldiers helped."

The other hand-talkers, not the hormone addicts, were more readable: saw flight well done came her way and bowli ball after?

That sounded good, but she really wasn't going to have time. Not today, she managed and, thank you.

Normally lunch was a chance for Theo to think over math or math lab, and even to eat. Today she was having a hard time fitting the food in around fielding questions and watching the hands for words.

The quarter chime sounded, barely discernible above the conversation buzz at table; in moments the group—all carefully nodding, saying, or signing their good-bye to Theo—was off in disparate directions.

Theo heard or felt the presence of someone behind her, and turned to see—

Asu.

Her roomie sighed gently, and without asking pulled out a chair and sat heavily.

"It won't last, you know." she said, waving at the empty chairs. "Once people figure out that you don't want to be friends, don't need to be friends, and can't do anything for them, they'll look for some other fast line."

Theo raised empty hands and shrugged. "I don't know why . . ."

Asu made a sound remarkably similar to one of Lesset's triumphant I-knew-it noises.

"Have you seen the news, Theo? Do you know how many comm calls I've denied this morning? I mean—you survived!"

Theo looked to the ceiling before hoisting the last of her drink and guzzling it. She was going to need to start walking soon . . .

"I don't much follow the news, Asu. Not politics, not finance, not even sports."

That last was a bit of a cut, and she was exaggerating, anyway.

Asu wrinkled her nose.

"Look, what's going on is the local newsies—and I mean planetary, not continental!—they've got these great long distance vids, even a satellite shot or two, of you throwing the Slipper around like it's an aerobat while the military chases public menace number one in your direction. Two expert commentators following the chase say there's no possible place for you to land and right there you calmly slot the thing in with a half wing-span to spare, just in time for the public menace to get obliterated, kabloom!"

Asu's sound effects and hand motions brought stares; Theo blushed and looked away. When she looked back, Asu's full attention was on her face.

"Look," Theo insisted, "all I did was land the Slipper. That's all. They told me they wanted the sky empty. That's what I did. This other stuff—" Theo found herself looking at the ceiling and its suspended model aircraft, moons, and spacecraft. "This other stuff isn't really about me."

Asu sighed slightly.

"I know—and I'm glad you know. It isn't your fault that Chelly's old bestguy and mentor was idiot enough to get shot down."

Theo looked up, eyes wide, and shook her head.

But Asu was nodding, with a certain amount of grimness.

"Chelly told me this morning. They were bestboys till Hap left and then didn't ever even answer a bit of comm . . . left him flat."

Theo grimaced. Just what they needed in close quarters, a senior with a problem love life come back to haunt him.

Asu sighed. She looked tired for a moment, then shook herself into businesslike.

"So," she said briskly. "I caught news reports for you; they're filed in your shared inbox, if you want them."

"Thanks," Theo said, not certain if she did want them. Still, it had been nice of Asu.

"You're welcome," Asu said, rising, with a shapeless flap of her hand. "I'll see you later, Theo. I've got to get to class."

Theo had class, too, and ran most of the way.

Commerce and Transport 111 was usually a dry, quiz-heavy class. Long-retired full-Terran cargo master Therny Chibs was the professor. Theo saw his lanky form just ahead and sped up to get to the door of the classroom before he did, squeezing by as he turned to address a question from a student who stood outside waiting.

Theo found classmates making room for her as she hurried to the back of the lecture room, still a bit unsettled by how many of the people acted like they knew who she was. Not likely, given the size of the class.

She'd already memorized and been tested on thirteen common forms for the class, and expected a quiz today on two more. Professor Chibs had never met a form he didn't like, nor a reporting protocol he didn't admire. If she was lucky it would be two more and not three, because she hadn't quite caught up with—

"We'll start," said Chibs in his twangy accent, "by requesting those of you who live by the syllabus or who are taking the class feed for catch-up to disconnect recording devices and save those pre-made form files for next class, when we'll return to boring you all with material that you'll only need to know if you graduate."

He chuckled at the startled looks, the same way he chuckled when gleefully pointing out some overlooked tick-box on a paper-filed support form.

"We have an object lesson to hand, and we shall use it. It comes to us in the shape of perhaps the most widely known pilot on the planet for the next two days, our own Theo Waitley."

It felt like the whole room turned to stare at her, tucked away as she was in the back corner. She sat up, and watched the professor warily.

"Oh no, you've all seen the news, I'm sure. Good landing, good landing, yes. Everyone knows what she did right, I'm sure. Now, with the pilot's leave, if you will listen to me closely rather than staring at Pilot Waitley, I'm going to tell you what was done wrong."

Pilot Waitley. There it was again.

The professor's hands flashed permission request pilot acknowledge so fast she almost had to assume it rather than read it.

Well, there. If she'd done something wrong she'd better know about it so she didn't have to depend on luck next time. She answered here for learning.

"Good, good," Professor Chibs said out loud, turning his back momentarily on the class before unleashing a large image of a Slipper to every desk top.

"Consider this," he said at volume as he turned back to peer at them, "your ship. You are a pilot, the ship is in your care. At what point does local traffic control, or local military for that matter, get to dictate what you do with it?"

Theo felt wrung out, if only from waiting for her errors to be told. Mostly, though, if she'd understood Professor Chibs correctly, the mistakes that had been made weren't exactly her mistakes. It was true that she'd failed to ask landing permission from the Mountain Commissioners, but that was arguably covered under the so-called Port In A Storm protocols.

Still, it was unnerving hearing her name used in terms of "Waitley's liability to pay for the ship if it were damaged" and, "In space, on a job run, Waitley must, and all of you must, take tactical news reports for your flight zones. That she wasn't informed of this is unfortunate, and that mistake is partially the school's curriculum and partially the fault of the equipment or lack of it on the Slipper. Your ship is your life."

He paused then, and an image of her Slipper, sitting on the mountain ridge, appeared. She wanted a copy of that—the Slipper looked beautiful!

"That's it then. No one signed for the ship, no one accepted legal or fiscal responsibility. No one offered, promised, or required a written return-to-ship. No one offered or promised hazard pay or indemnity. No one apologized—well, her instructor did, but none of the authorities on the scene. The debriefing was not done in a neutral location. On-site, the pilot demanded and received, through the intercession of another, more senior, pilot, a very basic securing of the ship, which was well done." Here he fell into hand talk for emphasis: listen listen listen.

"Do not undervalue detail, people. Do not undervalue info trails. Do not let the bureaucrats overwhelm you to the point that you, as a pilot, cannot fend for your ship. Do not forget that, on the whole, in a trouble spot, you first depend on your ship and yourself. You may listen to traffic control, but you must depend on pilot sense to survive."

Chib paused again, looked in her direction, and did a sort of half bow.

"Pilot Waitley, thank you."

Then he straightened, disappearing the Slipper from the desk tops, and raised his voice.

"Essay assignment due in ten days is entered into the log. I look forward to your analysis. Next class, back to the forms! Dismissed!"

Seven

Mail Room

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

"Do you see that?" Asu whispered fiercely to Theo as they took their place in line. "They're still throwing packages around like they don't care down here! Why doesn't the school just pay for a package system instead of using children like that to do the work?"

The children Theo was seeing were all bigger than her, and a couple of them were worth watching as they quietly hauled packages from the semi-pods that brought them directly out of the small transport sitting tubed to the building.

Not only that, for all that they were moving the packages rapidly out of the semi-pods, they didn't seem to be harming anything. As Father had pointed out to her on more than one occasion, the more noise you made, the more likely it was that you were using too much force.

The mail handlers were making a minimum of noise, their motions precise and controlled. There was no spinning, no random flinging, no purposeful shoves. Rather each package was selected, tossed gently by the tall young woman in the blue work top or the muscular guy with the strange mostly-bald-but-ponytail hairdo, and caught quietly, with an odd twisting motion . . .

Asu's complaints were subdued at the moment, and Theo gathered that the young man on the left side of the receiving line, the one with the shorts and—one willingly imagined—overall tan, was the object of her distraction.

That interesting twisting motion wasn't entirely a show-off, either, Theo saw. Instead, it looked like the handlers were making sure a read strip on each package was illuminated by a quick rainbow of light . . .

" 'Ware!" cried Blue Top over the bustle of the room, as the package she was in the process of moving took on an uncharacteristic wobble.

"Hah!"

The shorts and their inhabitant moved smoothly, the wobble was corralled, the read strip rainbowed, and the package passed on, no fuss, really, and nothing dropped or broken.

Asu's exclamation followed another pair of transfers.

"Security! The strips are passive, so they don't give off an ID to anyone with a listener. You can't just flash a frequency and hope to get a reading, and you can't get a type count that way, and you—"

"Next, please!"

Next was not them, but they had to move up in the slowly shortening line so the view of the workers was not as interesting. The overhead apparatus was more visible now, though, with multiple light sources and small buttons that were probably actually cameras.

"Guess it makes sense to keep it simple—" Theo said.

Asu harrumphed.

"I guess it works, but it seems slow. The refids are fast and self-reporting, though, and these are slow and require people. People are nosy. People are expensive! And they create lines!"

There was a gentle laugh from behind, which turned into the words. "Economy is such a variable concept, do you know. In some places, people work and expensive machines replaced thereby. Having people, conditions may be noticed without an official record being made. With people, you may reward and advance individuals, and train leaders for practical direction, without using sims and psych tests, both of which have surprising margins of error."

Even on a campus full of pilots and would-be pilots, Theo was becoming unused to being surprised by the silent approach of anyone. Flight Instructor yos'Senchul's voice was as smooth as his bow.

"Pilots," he said bowing to Theo, and then to Asu.

Asu's bow was instant, and probably overdone: obviously she'd been studying something, but yos'Senchul hadn't bowed any fancy bows, just a bow of acknowledgment and even a taste of "in this line together" with that motion of his hand . . .

Theo bowed as if acknowledging a remark from Captain Cho or Win Ton.

The pilot's hand flurry said is good, combined with a nod that was almost a wink.

Asu was by now waving a polite hand forward, as if to offer her place to yos'Senchul. He flipped his hand with a practiced equanimity.

"Thank you, but no. This is my off-hour just as it is yours, and as pilots, we ought practice standing in line together as well as orbiting harmoniously, since we need do the first more often than the last—or so it seems."

"Erkes," Asu said with some asperity when they at last arrived at the head of the line, "Suite three-oh-two. Package pickup note."

"Well, we're so glad you could make it! Any longer on all these and we'd have been charging you rent!"

The rather pale young man on the counter tossed a crumbled ball of paper or plastic over a short wall lined with tables, calling out at the same time, "Hey, wake up back there! Bring out that Erkes mountain, will you?"

"Any longer?" Asu demanded. "We'd have been here sooner except we had a line in front of us, you know!"

Theo admired Asu's restraint.

"They've been here for hours!" The counter guy answered. "If you didn't sleep late you could have had this out of here at breakfast!"

Asu started to say something, but then choked the words into a really ugly face and a good seething hiss, apparently in deference to yos'Senchul, standing quietly behind them.

Her accent with her hands wasn't all that good yet, Theo saw, but still, the words thrown toward the floor were quite indignant, and included rude, useless, slow, and maybe sunless.

"Which Erkes package is that?" came a firm voice from the back, followed by, "Will you recycle your own snack pack, Turley? Not my fault you drew the line again. I think they're trying to tell you something!"

Clanks and plastic squeals ensued, followed by a thud.

"That big one fell again!"

"If they've dropped something of mine, I'm going to . . . I'm going to . . ."

Theo grinned and filled in, "Going to go to the Delm of Korval?" she asked, remembering how Father had challenged her as a child, leaning on her favorite book to help bring a sense of proportion to her young complaints.

"Do what?" Asu turned, squinted down at Theo with a wry expression, waving her hands at the same time.

Theo's fingers told Asu will repeat suggestion and she said out loud as seriously as she could muster, "Are you going to take this problem to the Delm of Korval?"

"How could he help?" the other girl asked, apparently genuinely puzzled. "I mean, that's silly. He's dead, anyway, even if he could."

"He's dead?" Theo stared at her, feeling her grin slide toward a gap. "You mean there is a Delm of Korval? Or—was?"

Asu shook her head sadly.

"Yes, there was one, of course there was. But he died. Very sad."

"No, wait," Theo said. "I thought he was a story—a myth for littlies!"

A voice from behind the short wall interrupted their discussion and promised more delay.

"This thing is tagged by you, Turley. I need your signature before I can move it!"

"You got a go from me," the counter guy called.

"I need your signature or a thumbprint, not a verbal!"

Turley sighed dramatically, looked at the line, which had grown considerably at yos'Senchul's back, and called out, "A moment more only, duty calls!" before hurrying toward the back.

Asu shook her head, continued: "Why would you think Korval was a myth? They've got ships everywhere. They make Diamon Lines looks small!"

Asu sounded exasperated, so Theo continued in the same tone. "I thought the Delm of Korval was a myth because I saw him in a storybook for kids!"

"Ah . . ."

That was yos'Senchul, who had obviously been listening in with some interest.

Theo rounded on him.

"Well, that's where I knew about him. The book was called Sam Tim's Ugly Day, and it was by Meicha Maarilex. I found it at a Try and Trade when I was a littlie, and made Father read it to me over and over—it had the story in Terran at the top of the page and in Trade at the bottom . . . and 'way in the back, it was written out in Liaden. That's how I started reading Trade and Terran together—even though the words weren't always exactly the same as Father read to me from the back."

She sighed, knowing exactly where that book was, and knowing that with any luck at all Coyster would be sitting on the desk under the bookshelf, staring up at the mobile, or curled asleep on the bed or . . .

"And this book was all about Delm Korval? I think I have heard of the author but did not know she had written about Korval."

The instructor's voice was low, but she'd managed to catch his words despite her own distraction.

"No, but that's why it was interesting. There was Sam Tim, you see, and his day was ugly to him. He complained some. Nothing was going right, over and over, and he kept wanting it all fixed. Everyone in his family, and all his neighbors, and the storekeepers, they kept saying to him, 'And if we can't solve this for you, what will you do? Take your problem to Delm Korval?' "

"Ah, an excellent question to ask someone suffering from the day without delight, Al'kin Chernard'i, as we have it in Liaden."

Theo nodded, and looked back to Asu.

"See, it was obvious that Sam Tim was always looking too high for his answer, that he ought to be able to solve some things for himself. That, really, you only go to Delm Korval with really important problems. So then we started using that for us. If I was having problems with something, or complaining, Father would ask me, 'So, is this problem worth taking to Delm Korval?' It was a joke."

"Truth, also," yos'Senchul said. "One would wish not to be seen by Delm Korval over matters of little consequence."

"But you say he's real! I thought he was like, you know, Mr. Winter who lives over the mountain and brings the snow."

"No, not so powerful and more powerful too, that is Korval." yos'Senchul raised one hand, fingers curled slightly, as if weighing Korval's power. "A mighty clan, Korval, and very old. They are considered, perhaps, a bit odd, even dangerous, though none doubts their melant'i."

Asu nodded as if he'd given a lecture, and blurted out breathlessly, "If you think Korval's a myth you might as well think that Diamon Lines—and me too—are myths!" She waved her hand, not hand-talk, just finger-junk, and went on quickly. "But, anyway, Clan Korval doesn't have a delm right now. He committed suicide!"

"This news . . ." said the instructor, leaning forward earnestly. "Of a suicide I have heard. Might you share? Is it recent?"

"You didn't know? Delm Korval's life-wife was shot on Liad, right in front of him. I mean, she died, stepping in front of a pellet meant for him. And there, it was like he kept going a few days, and then turned everything over to staff, and left. They say he took his wife's spaceship and just flew it right on into the sun!"

"Ah," said the Liaden carefully. "Do you know, I think that I may have heard this—it happened some Standards ago, if I recall correctly."

Over a sudden clatter and squeaking, yos'Senchul hand-spoke a determined attend me, leaning forward so they might both hear.

"Even at the time, there was some measure of disbelief in this death. It seemed . . . unlikely, at best, given what they say of Korval—and what Korval says of Korval. Korval is ships, Liadens say. A delm so distraught as to consider self-death . . . even such a delm, being Korval, I think would not, and could not, kill a ship. Korval is ships, Korval is pilots."

Asu looked aggrieved.

"Well, have you seen Delm Korval? There is none!"

She straightened abruptly, fingers pressed to lips, as if just recalling that she spoke with one of her instructors.

yos'Senchul smiled lightly, his hand signaling a soothing this will clear.

"Indeed, this is not the first time that Korval has waited upon a delm—and it is true that yos'Galan never spoke against the reports. Be assured that there will again be a Delm Korval, and Sam Tim's lesson is a good one to recall. Go to Korval Himself only in extremity!"

"Do you guys want this stuff or should we just send it back now?" Turley leaned on the counter in front of them, hands spreading apart in question.

The stuff was overwhelming, and the first five pieces of it, including two large packages requiring signatures and thumbprints both, were for Asu, who cooed over the return addresses, each from one of the stops on the pro scavage tour. Covered in customs stickers, postage marks and symbols, freight notes, and handling instructions, the collection massed more than Asu.

Theo nodded to herself with casual understanding: this was why Asu wanted her to come along—not out of a concern that Theo wasn't getting enough "fresh air," but to have help carrying it all! It was a shame, she thought, that most of her hangers-on had found other things more interesting than her over the last few days.

No, on second thought—it wasn't. All that company had made her twitchy and bad-tempered. She'd rather not have to deal with a crowd, even if it would have been useful to have more hands to push Asu's mail across campus.

"Two more," Turley called out.

Asu looked around, spied a community-use handcart across the room and darted off, leaving Theo to cope with whatever came across the counter next.

. . . which turned out to not be so bad.

Package number six was a white box bearing local postage only—for Chelly. It had the look of a box of candy or pastries. There was no return address and no sign-for; Theo took that in hand with a shrug, as Asu came back, pushing the cart ahead of her.

The clerk from the back tossed the last package over the wall.

"Heads up! That one needs special handling!"

It wasn't a big packet; slightly smaller than Chelly's box. Turley caught it casually, and glanced at the tear slip.

Asu reached for it, but Turley lifted it out of her range.

"Ahem, student. This object has traveled light-years to reach us, so I think it ought to go to the person it's for. Erkes, Suite 302, Theo Waitley."

He looked at Theo suspiciously, hamming it up for the line.

"Are you a pilot, Trainee? Or do I have to sign this for you from my lofty height?" He tapped the stylized delta wing on his collar for emphasis. "This, my friend, is pilot post."

He held the package out tantalizingly, as if daring Theo to take it.

From behind her came yos'Senchul's voice.

"If you please, Second Class Provisional Pilot Turley, it would honor me to sign for this package if you feel that Pilot Waitley's bona fides are lacking. In fact, I insist. I'm sure we all know the Terran refrain, 'Pilot post travels faster on the wings of a master.' "

Eight

Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

It was Asu's turn to push.

Theo walked beside the cart, keeping a concerned eye on the wobbling stack of packages, especially the thin one in the pale-brown cargo wrap. The wrap was worn in spots—which was, Theo told herself, reasonable for something so well traveled. There was a stub of green stuck askew at the bottom left, which was her part of the school's tear slip; otherwise the package was innocent of the postage and customs forms that decorated every square centimeter of Asu's packages.

Her name and address were written on it in clear Trade block letters on the right, and again, in flowing Liaden cursive, on the left. The return address was in Trade, the sender's name also rendered in Liaden.

She might, she thought, as she grabbed onto the cart to help ease it over a particularly rough bit of sidewalk, have been guilty of over-bowing to Pilot yos'Senchul for his signature. Theo thought the instructor had been amused, though, and he had made her sign her name, too, beside his on the slip, then tore it off and handed it to Turley with a flourish.

Surprisingly, the mail clerk had bowed, and solemnly placed the slip into a small bin at the side of the counter. "Next outgoing pilot," he had said, then looked over Theo's head and called out, "All right! Who's next?"

"Scout Pilot Win Ton yo'Vala?" Asu said, as they and the cart hit smooth surface again.

She'd already said the same thing twice before, and it was getting hard to ignore her. You'd think, Theo said to herself, that a girl who'd just collected five packages with her name on them would be too busy wondering what was in them to pay attention to somebody else's mail.

Still, she'd better answer something; it was important to keep peace—more or less—with her roommates.

"Win Ton's a friend," she said, like she was telling a story about somebody else. "We played bowli ball on the liner when I went to Melchiza with my mother and her team." She felt her lips curve slightly upward. "We beat the dance machine, too. The arcade manager said we had the two highest scores she'd ever seen."

"And he remembers these adventures so kindly that he sends you a packet at school," Asu said, with a smug look that Theo didn't quite understand. "A good friend, indeed!"

"Well," Theo said cautiously, "he is a good friend. But it isn't like it cost him a lot to get this to me."

Asu's laugh was quick and sharp.

"Did it not? Are you sure?"

Theo frowned and looked again at the thin box with its notable lack of stickers and forms.

"The favors, you mean."

"Sometimes," Asu said, in that annoying too-old-for-school voice she used to explain obvious details to the kid, "favors are more expensive than cash. And he owes everyone who carried that package a favor." She sighed, stopped pushing, and spent a few seconds fussing with the brake before she looked up again.

"That's a good friend," she said and the smirk this time was unmistakable. "Here, it's your turn to push."

"I owe a favor, too, though, don't I?" Theo said when they'd changed places and gotten under way. Asu was eying her box again.

"What gives you—oh." The other girl frowned slightly. "yos'Senchul had you sign too, didn't he? Yes, I guess you do owe a favor, or will, as soon as that receipt gets back to your . . . friend."

Theo gritted her teeth and kept on pushing. "Why?"

"Well, it's clear yos'Senchul expects great things from you," Asu said, matter-of-factly. "There's a hole, Theo, bear left—good. All of the pilot teachers have, ever since you brought the Slipper down like that." She cast Theo a bland, over-the-shoulder look. "You really do need to get your math scores up, though."

"I know," Theo told her fervently.

"So," Asu said, with another glance at the top of the cart, "what do you think it is?"

You had to give her credit, Theo thought; Asu never gave up.

"It's probably just a note," she said, shaking damp strands of hair out of her face. But there wasn't any reason, was there, she asked herself, for Win Ton to send a note this way, incurring all those favors, when they'd been writing via the letter service just fine, her more than him—and her less than before she'd come to Anlingdin.

Asu's sigh could've blown a feather ten feet.

"No, it's probably not just a note," she said. "Pilot post is expensive, weren't you listening? Why would your . . . friend . . . pile up all those favors to send you a note when he could use a letter service far more cheaply?" She gave Theo a smile. "It's bothering you, isn't it? You can stop and open it now, if you'd like. I don't mind waiting."

Theo put her head down and kept pushing. The steepest part of the path was still ahead; it would take both of them pushing to get the cart up to Erkes. The good part was that the approach hill was short.

"Bowli ball," Asu said, contemplatively, as if speaking to herself. "Our little Theo has a Scout pilot sweet on her and she thinks we'll believe they just played bowli ball. Oh, I'll take a wager that he taught her all kinds of hand-talk!"

That was it. Theo stopped, set the brake, snatched Chelly's package and her own from the top of the cart and was half-a-dozen steps up the hill before Asu found her voice.

"Wait! Theo, where are you going?"

"Home," she said, pointing up the hill to where Erkes was silhouetted against darkening clouds. "With my package and with Chelly's. You can bring your stuff from here."

"It will take both of us to get the cart up that hill!" Asu cried. "Theo—be reasonable."

"I am being reasonable," Theo said sincerely, but she was already slowing. Asu in a snit was irritating. Asu in a snit at her was bound to be unpleasant in ways she didn't have time for. Besides, she told herself, as her feet turned her around, Asu did try to be helpful, and to pull her weight as a member of the team. Sometimes. In her own way.

"Win Ton didn't send this to you, he sent it to me," Theo said.

"Agreed," Asu said solemnly.

"I want you to promise to quit asking what's in this package—and I want you to quit making fun of Win Ton! You don't even know him!"

"That is true," Asu said, still solemn. "I don't know him." She sighed. "I apologize, Theo. To tease about a bestboy or bestgirl is considered . . . friendly . . . in my experience."

"I know some other people who think so," Theo admitted, remembering her team on Delgado. "But I don't think so."

"I'll remember that," Asu promised, and moved to the back of the cart. "Now, will you help me push? I think it's going to rain."

They got the cart through the door with a clatter that would have earned a sharp word from Kamele and a sharper look from Father, but didn't even rate an open door and a curious look from their across-the-hall neighbors.

"Chelly," Asu called as soon as they were inside, "you have mail!"

"He's not here," Theo said, jerking her head at the senior's door, with its yellow status light.

"Another round of workouts, I suppose," Asu said in a long-suffering voice, like she was Chelly's mother or older sister. Not, Theo thought, slipping the slender white box into the in-basket next to Chelly's door, that it wasn't worrisome, the number of hours he'd been spending at the gym. Theo wondered if the work helped him feel . . . less sad about his bestboy's—about what had happened to Hap Harney. If it did, she guessed it was a good thing, and, really, Chelly didn't have that tight, bruised look in his face anymore. On the few occasions she'd seen him lately, he'd only looked . . . tired.

Behind her came a prolonged crackling. Theo turned in time to see Asu throw the wrapper from the smallest of her boxes to the floor. The others wobbled, and Theo jumped forward to grab Win Ton's package and slide it quickly into the thigh pocket of her pants.

"Look!" Asu cried, shaking out a long strip of hot pink gauze.

Theo squinted. "What is it?"

"A banthawing," Chelly said sourly from the front door. "They're not going to let you use that until you can at least get through a board drill without a fumble."

"Why not?" Asu demanded, whirling around so fast the gauze snapped audibly. "It's a—a recreational device!"

"It teaches bad habits, is what it does," Chelly said. He kicked the discarded wrapping as he came into the room and shook his head. "You're gonna clean this up, right?"

"In a moment," Asu said loftily. "I have other packages."

"Hope they're more use to you than that thing. Who sent—oh! The scavage-head. Give him a hint, why not?"

"I would never hint to Jondeer that I wanted a present!" Asu said hotly. "He sends what is in his heart!"

Chelly turned and blinked at the banthawing and then at Asu.

"Funny kind of thing to find in somebody's heart," he commented, then threw his hands up in front of his face, half-heartedly, Theo thought, as if to fend Asu off.

"Hey, it's your relationship. I'd just think you'd clue him in on your space situation, so he wouldn't waste shipping on big stuff like this that you don't have anyplace to keep."

"This is not all from Jondeer!" Asu snapped. She threw the gauze over the cart's handle and snatched the second-biggest box from its place on the cart. "This, for instance, is from my father's head of security!"

"Great," Chelly said without enthusiasm. "I hope she didn't send you another one of those whaddycallits—checksums."

"Checksec," Theo said hurriedly, seeing Asu's face tighten. "Chelly, there was a package for you, too." She jerked her chin at the inbox. "I put it in your basket."

"For me?" He frowned, then shook himself, his mouth straightening into a thin line. Theo thought maybe he was trying for a smile. "Thanks."

He moved toward his door, and Theo turned to go into the room she shared with Asu, meaning to retire to her bunk and open Win Ton's package while both of her roomies were involved in their own business.

"Oh, of all the thought-deprived, careless—"

Theo turned; Asu was holding up a hinged, transparent screen.

"What's that?"

"This"—Asu shook the item in question so hard its hinges squealed—"is the security shield for the Checksec that was confiscated. Had I had this at the beginning, it would not have drawn the attention—"

"Shit."

It was amazing how cleanly that quiet cuss word cut through Asu's racket. They both turned toward the third member of their party.

"What's wrong?" Theo asked. Chelly was standing like he'd been dipped in plastic and left to dry, staring down into the open white box, the lid held loose in his off-hand.

"Chelly?" She moved forward, carefully. His face was almost as green as his gym shirt and she could see sweat on his upper lip. "Hey, Chelly," she said.

He looked up, eyes wide, face looking—soft. Unformed. He focused, first on Theo, then on Asu; his face firmed and he put the lid back on the box.

"I'm calling Security," he said, his voice absolutely steady. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his key, tossing it underhand to Theo. "You're in charge, Waitley. First Bunk in the absence of the senior, right?"

She swallowed, the card warm in her hand, and nodded, once. "Right," she said, acknowledging the chain of command.

"Good kid." He went over to the comm, not even bothering to kick Asu's discarded wrappings on the way.

Security had come, and Security had taken Chelly into custody, as he must've known they would, Theo thought, as she lay on her bunk, staring up at the dark ceiling. She'd overhead a little of his low-voiced conversation with the two officers who had answered his call—enough to know that the box, whatever was in it, was from Hap. Since Hap was dead, it was probably somebody's idea of a joke, Theo thought—a really cruel joke, too; baiting somebody with his dead bestboy's name. She could see why Chelly would be upset, but calling Security seemed an overreaction.

The Security team hadn't thought so, though. And now she was in charge. Until Chelly got back. Which ought to be, she told herself, as she had every fifteen minutes since he'd gone, Real Soon Now.

She and Asu had cleaned up; Asu had stowed her presents, except for the stuffed octopod Jondeer had sent her. That, she had improbably taken to bed with her, sleeping curled around, like it was a cat—or a friend.

Theo, alone in the top bunk, envied her, but she couldn't sleep—it didn't seem right to sleep—until Chelly got home. She'd have to let him in; she had his key.

On the other hand, she ought to try to get some sleep. She had an early class. History of Piloting. Boring.

Finally, she got bored with the ceiling and her thoughts, sat up, turned on the minispot and pulled Win Ton's package out from under her pillow. Carefully, so she didn't wake Asu up, she slit the wrapping and opened the small box.

It was a note; written in careful but perhaps hasty Terran on a skinny sheet with a trick underlay that changed color as the paper moved. Blevins Transit Services, Gas, Groceries and Gladthings, it said—and then it didn't, and she could read the words he'd sent.

Sweet Mystery, dear friend Theo, the Terran words ran, I trust and hope this finds you well, in the aftermath of your recent successful soaring flight made under such trying circumstances.

She blushed at the memory of telling Win Ton it was stupid of him to call her "Sweet Mystery" . . . but there, their friendship had survived that setdown, and she was glad they had.

The news of your flight reaches here in the latest of piloting updates, where it is shared among pilots full of admiration, and some with jealousy that one so new to the art should perform so well. For me, I am not surprised that you go on so well, but expect it.

In her head she heard his voice, trying to be both formal and light, and saw him suppress a smile as he did so often.

It is the nature of the universe to provide us with both challenges and frustrations, and this challenge you have borne so well, while I alas, have labored under the frustration of being a mere two jumps away from you, and thus, close enough to consider coming to you in celebration and far enough away that given time and my duty schedule it is impossible to route myself to you. But there, know that I celebrate and that in honor of your flight, I bestow upon you the enclosed, which of course you must wear only if your grade permits, and only if you desire it, and feel it appropriate.

If it matters, the note went on, the enclosed was on my duty uniform until I wrapped it here; I have a new one that I was too indolent to attach without good cause, which cause I now have. Please wear it in good health, always. If this scrawl is unreadable it is because a Scout pilot stands waiting to receive it, her ship fueled and at the ready, that it might travel the first of those Jumps that separate us, that your wings should reach you swiftly.

She smiled at the hyperbole of a Scout waiting a ship for a note to her—and then wondered if it was hyperbole.

Below the note, wrapped in a second sheet of the same informal stationery, was a pair of slender silver and onyx wings, engraved feathers glistening.

Theo held them, remembering. She'd seen them on his collar. Yes, she had. And they'd go on hers as soon as she could put them there.

Nine

History of Piloting

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

"Perhaps Trainee Waitley would like to relate the history of the ven'Tura Tables to the class."

Theo started. She hadn't been dozing, exactly, though Instructor Johansen's voice did tend to put her to sleep, even when she wasn't working with a short night behind her. But—the ven'Tura Tables? She had done her reading, she thought, her stomach tightening in panic. She sent a quick glance at her screen, but if she'd read anything about these tables—whatever they were—she hadn't thought them worthy of even a note, much less a history.

"Well, Waitley?" Johansen purred in that nasty-sweet voice that meant she was about to shave an inch off of somebody—and Theo was apparently today's chosen victim. "I'd think that someone who was sponsored into this academy by the Liaden Scouts would be fully conversant with the ven'Tura Tables."

Theo took a deep breath to settle her stomach, and stood—in Johansen's class, you stood to give your answer, so everybody could get a good look at the kid who was too dumb to be up on her work.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," she said, keeping her head up and meeting the teacher's eyes. After all, Kamele and Father had taught her that it was no shame to admit ignorance, though it wasn't going to be pleasant to be chewed out in front of the whole class for not having done her reading thoroughly.

"I'm afraid I don't know the history of the ven'Tura Tables," she said, and added, before she could stop herself, "and I wasn't sponsored by the Scouts, ma'am. I was sponsored by a Scout."

"By a Scout," Johansen repeated, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "Thank you for that correction, Trainee. Sit down." She spun around, glaring at the rest of the class.

"Well? Who can tell the tale of the ven'Tura Tables? No one? Not one of you has read ahead?"

She shook her head.

"And you aspire to be pilots," she said witheringly. She clicked the autoboard control in her hand and the screen came alive behind her, thick with citations.

Theo touched her keyboard and snatched the info down, scanning the windows as they opened.

"The class will—at your leisure, of course!" Johansen was saying, "—review this material. Each of you will bring to our next meeting an analysis of the Tables, comparing Master Pilot ven'Tura's original effort with the Caylon Revisions. I will expect some insight into those factors which made revision necessary and the role of the Tables—in the original and the revised forms—in shaping piloting as it is now practiced. Go."

The end-of-class chimes were simultaneous with that last contemptuous word, and there was a subdued clatter as the trainees gathered their things up and ran for their next classes.

"At your leisure," Theo muttered, as she walked across the quad. She actually didn't have a class right now, though that didn't mean she was at leisure. Far from it. For her leisure time between classes, she had her choice of activities. She could practice board drills, work through her math tutorials, review the latest sample batch of cargo forms, or she could get started on Johansen's read-and-analyze.

And, really, what she wanted to do more than anything else on this bright, blowy day was to sign out a Slipper and escape into the green and gold sky.

Theo sighed. She didn't think she was a slacker, but she couldn't understand how school kept getting harder. By now, she ought to have the rhythm down, and done all the readings listed on the syllabi—she'd always had time to read ahead at school. Here at Anlingdin, she felt like she was running all the time, without any leisure, and instead of catching up, she was falling further behind!

"Ball!" called an unfamiliar voice.

There was a blur of not-quite random motion in the corner of her eye. Theo spun, feeling her pack shift on her back, snatched the bowli ball out of the air and pitched it at a girl in a pair of faded mechanic's coveralls.

The girl jumped, grabbed the ball and let it spin her in midair, releasing it before she was back on the ground. It danced crazily to the right, then to the left—and then shot straight up, almost clipping the nose of a stocky boy with his hair in a dozen short pigtails.

He made a one-handed recover and rolled the ball off his palm, on a trajectory for Theo.

"Hey!" she protested, but the ball was on its way and there was nothing she could do except field the thing and get it moving to somebody else. Turning your back on a bowli ball was a good way to get beaned—or worse. It wasn't unusual for bones to be broken in an intense bowli ball engagement. Chaos! She'd come away with bruises from playing with Phobai and Win Ton and Cordrey—and she'd been paying attention!

"Ball!" yelled the third player—a lanky, loose-jointed kid Theo recognized from her General Aviation class. She twisted, getting around the ball just in time, and sweating a little, too. She'd let her attention wander, and that was fatal.

"Out!" The lanky player stepped back, hands down at his side. "Duty."

"Find me later," the stocky boy called, while the girl in the coveralls dove for the ball.

"I can't play!" Theo protested. "I've got too much work to do!"

"A pox on work!" the girl answered, sliding into the grass to grab the ball before it touched the ground. It came out of her hands with a tipsy spin on it, and the boy hooted as he ran forward, one up and to the right.

"Forfeit, Kara!" he yelled.

"Frell if I will!" the girl yelled back. "That ball is in play, sir!"

"Didn't touch!" Theo called, feeling like the boy was trying to get off easy—and suddenly there was the ball again, high over her head. She jumped, and almost lost her balance when the pack shifted on her back. Twisting, she released the ball, skinned the straps down, dropped the pack in the grass—and danced sideways, catching the ball on a dip and sending it whirling back.

"That was fun!" Kara panted cheerfully to Theo. Their third had called duty, grounded the ball and taken it with him as he ran toward the landing field. "A shame we were playing with Vin's ball, eh? If I had one of my own we could have continued."

"Not too much longer," Theo said, scraping wet hair back off of her face. "I've got class." She gave the other girl a grin. "It was fun, though. Thanks for calling me in."

"No, that was Ristof," Kara said, naming the lanky boy. "He had been telling us that you were much better than you walked, and then here you came, stomping across the grass like a dirt-hugger, and the idea just bloomed." Kara pulled the clip out of her hair and shook her head, loosing a perfectly straight cascade of reddish-gold hair down past her shoulders.

"Be careful of Ristof in the clutch of an idea," she said, stuffing the clip into one of the coverall's numerous pockets. "A warning, because you do not play like a dirt-hugger."

Theo frowned, and looked around for her bag.

"What do I play like?" she asked, spotting the abandoned item a surprising distance away. "If you don't mind saying."

"Ah, have I insulted you?" Kara sounded more curious than contrite, walking with Theo toward the bag. "You play, Theo Waitley, like a pilot. More, you play like a pilot who has already flown the stars—I say this as one who has lived her whole life in a House full of such. Indeed . . ." She paused, blue eyes narrowed in her round, gold-toned face.

Theo bent and picked up her pack, shrugging into it.

"Indeed?" she asked.

"It is a thought, only, but it may serve you. I have heard that you have what my so-excellent Terran friends term 'attitude.' That you 'spoil' for want of a fight."

"I've heard that, too," Theo said, remembering Chelly's advice that she lose her "attitude." She turned uphill, surprised but not displeased to find Kara walking with her.

"Such judgments upon your good nature must be lowering. But what can you expect when you broadcast across two bands?"

Theo turned her head to get a good look at the other girl's face, but she seemed serious. "I don't understand," she said.

Kara nodded. "Yes, yes! It is apparent! When you are at rest, you walk—not like a dirt-hugger, but like a Terran. Your eye is bold, your stance is square, and you look—Theo Waitley, you look at everything!"

"If I didn't look, I'd wind up walking into a tree," Theo pointed out.

"Accompany me but a step further," Kara said excitedly. "When it comes to action—to bring a Slipper down on emergency landing, or to join into a sudden game of bowli ball—then, Theo Waitley, you act as a Liaden! You are quick, you are subtle, you grasp nuance—the difference is quite remarkable."

Theo chewed her lip. The sound of an air breather taking off came to them on the wind. Somebody was having fun in the sky today.

"My mother's Terran," Theo said eventually. "My father's Liaden."

"That would explain much," Kara said, solemnly. "You speak to one who stands in a comparable situation. My family is Liaden, but most of our associates are Terran. I would advise you in your present state to give Liad itself wide berth."

"Stuck-up?" asked Theo, amused by her new acquaintance's busyness.

"One might say. Not long since, I visited my uncle at Chonselta City—allow me to say that I was compelled! Still, kin counts, and it was thought that my uncle might see me established in a piloting school upon Liad, where the politics are—somewhat less effervescent than we have here at home. It was no use, however; I am tainted from my contact with Terrans, and the distressful fact that my House is situated upon an outworld. It was worth my life to bow—and I have, I assure you, been taught the forms!"

"So you came back and took your scholarship here."

"My uncle could not buy me a passage quickly enough!" Kara laughed, shook her head—and laughed again. "There! You see? A properly brought up Liaden woman does not shake her head. Alas, the habit is altogether too easy to pick up and far too difficult to put down!"

"Your family are all pilots?" Theo asked, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house full of Win Tons and Captain Chos.

"Pilots for hire, the lot of us! Which is what I shall be in my turn, though perhaps," she said, suddenly sounding wistful, "I can convince my mother to allow me to 'prentice at Hugglelans repair yard when I am done here."

"I used to like helping my father work on his cars," Theo said, slowly. "It was fun, but I think I'd rather be a pilot than a techneer."

"Oh, I'll be a pilot, never fear it! But a mechanic who can also jockey ships—that is worth a premium fee! But stay—your father is a mechanic?"

Theo laughed. "My father's a scholar. He teaches cultural genetics. His—I guess you'd say his hobby is cars. He races. There aren't that many techs who know the engines on Delgado, so he fixes his own." She hesitated, then added. "My father's considered a little odd."

"What, because he does his own repairs?"

"No-o. Because he lives outside the Wall in his own house, with a garden, surrounded by things that are—distractions to true scholarship!" She grinned, remembering what Father's answer had been to that bit of high-nosed criticism.

"Pah! That has the feel of a quote! Of course, your father heeded this well-meaning advice to conform himself?"

"Not exactly," Theo told her.

Kara grinned. "Your father's classes are well attended, perhaps?"

"Oh, there's a waiting list!" Theo said, remembering. "Students travel to Delgado just to take his courses."

"I see. Thus, he has melant'i out his ears, and may safely do as he pleases."

"It does seem to work out that way," Theo agreed.

Kara sent her a sidelong glance. "Your father did not teach you to be a Liaden, did he?"

"Why would he?" Theo asked reasonably. "Delgado's Terran."

"True if you say so, Theo Waitley." Kara raised her hand. "I fear that our ways part here. Come find me the next time you want a game of bowli ball—Kara ven'Arith. I'm in Belgraid."

"I'll do that," Theo said, and meant it.

Ten

Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Theo's work screen was three deep in reference chapters, each detailing some aspect of the ven'Tura Tables. Her hands were busy with needle and thread.

The Tables—the original ven'Tura Tables—were just lists: numbered lists of numbers, lettered lists of numbers, cross-listed lists of numbers and dates, and more lists of numbers. They weren't nearly as interesting as their history, and for once Theo was glad she'd been more than a little attentive during some of her mother's informal get-togethers where the always-fluid topic of "the history of history" was under discussion. You could always count on someone saying that "you can't judge past actions by the standards of today; you have to look at things from the perspective of the times." "And," Father would add if he was there, "the culture."

Still smarting under Johansen's scorn, she was determined to produce an analysis that did justice to the topic, and placed the Tables into their proper historical context. Culture didn't seem to matter, unless you thought of piloting as a culture, but the times . . . The original Tables had been developed during a time of trade expansion, coupled with a radical improvement in Jump drives. Those two conditions had created an urgent need for clarifying gravity effects and string constants as tradeships began to travel more than a few hundred light-years from home.

Ships had begun to go missing—lost, or found far too late for the crew to be rescued, because no one had formalized the new conditions. One ship in a thousand was lost, routinely. And all people said—even pilots!—was that piloting was dangerous. Which it was. But what nobody looked at was why it was dangerous, and if the odds couldn't be leveled a little, in favor of pilots surviving and ships winning through.

Nobody, that was, until Master Pilot ven'Tura had dared not only to log, but to share with all pilots—even Terrans, which was considered antisocial in his culture—the information that he and his clan had gathered over dozens of years.

Eventually, Master ven'Tura had become the clearing house and editor for the monumental and necessary task, and his Tables became rote companion to thousands of pilots over generations.

Then, over time, the loss of pilots and ships trended upward again. Most assumed it was because there were more ships and more pilots, less training, and . . . all kinds of things. It had taken someone with keen insight to see that there were tiny and fundamental flaws in the way the ven'Tura Tables were being applied, in the way they were being read by modern equipment . . .

And so, the Tables had been revised. Recently, within the lifetime of pilots still flying. Again, they were making a difference. Had already made a difference. The number of ships lost was down again, in a statistically meaningful way. The person who had done the revision had been a Scholar Caylon, also a Liaden, though not, it seemed, a pilot.

Theo flicked a footnote to access the next level of information.

Well. It seemed that Scholar Caylon was Pilot-Scholar Caylon, though she had come to piloting late, and after her revised Tables had been adopted by pilotkind. She'd been a statistician of a sort, an expert in Sub-rational Mathematics. The text noted that her later work was . . . esoteric—notably a lengthy proof for pseudorandom tridimensional subspaces that, while illuminating her genuis, was of little practical use to working pilots.

The text also noted that her scholarly output had lessened after her affiliation with Clan Korval—

Theo blinked; shook her head.

"Spend your whole life thinking something's made-up and then it starts showing up everywhere," she muttered, and tapped the screen again, calling back the problem she'd set up to help her think.

Trouble was, it wasn't particularly helping her think. She glared at the screen, looked down at the work in hand, and shook her head again.

She pressed the process button, importing the familiar "standard cluster" that the class, indeed, the whole school seemed to depend on for training, into the second set of assumptions. How concrete were the numbers when applied to a tiny, sanitary, best-case situation?

But there, the work in her hands was concrete, while space, which the numbers were trying to describe . . .

A noise sounded in the hall, a thump—she shook her head. The kids—she felt like she could call them that even though some were several years older than her—the local kids had been all revved up over a sporting event; charging around the building cheering since early morning, though the game didn't start 'til afternoon. Even Asu had gone out to view the victory, leis woven in layers around her neck.

The noise repeated, and resolved: someone was at her door. Theo sighed, locked the screen, and gathered her lace into one hand.

The click came before she was on her feet, and a tired-looking Chelly smiled up at her as he lifted several large bags into the entry, where they thunked solidly on the floor.

"Chelly, they let you come back!"

She felt her face warm slightly—it sounded like she was pleased to see him, after all . . .

"Treat to see you, too, First Bunk!"

"Well, I am," she insisted, because it was true, after all, "glad to see you."

He laughed and shook his head. "Don't worry, I'm sort of glad to see you too." He shouldered the door shut, making sure it clicked tight, and stepped into the room, leaving his bags by the door, where Asu could complain that she'd almost fallen over them when she came back.

"Not out at the game?" he asked, and peered over the top of her screen. "Oh. Orbital dynamics, huh?"

"I wish," Theo said, settling back into her seat. "History of Piloting."

He blinked. "Yeah? With that screen?"

"We're doing the ven'Tura Tables," Theo said, unfolding the lace bit and spreading it out. It was . . . almost right. She leaned forward and unlocked the screen, frowning between the configuration of stars and what she had in hand.

"Still playing with the needles?"

"No," Theo said absently. "Not playing. Seeing." She squinted up at Chelly.

"Why does everybody act like space is flat?"

"Huh? Who said space was—oh, I get it." Chelly held up his hands. "You gotta learn your basics first—the tables and the board drills. The math, if you don't mind my saying. After you got all that—"

"The math isn't flat!" Theo broke in, feeling a surge of heat, like temper. She bit her lip; it wasn't Chelly's fault and yet—

"What d'ya mean, the math isn't flat?" Chelly was looking at her sideways, which he did when he thought you might be pushing a line.

"The whole point of the ven'Tura Tables—the reason they needed revision—is that space isn't flat—and it isn't static! And to describe what a non-static, dimensioned space is doing, you need a math that isn't flat! That's what Scholar Caylon did! She didn't so much revise the Tables, as she revised the math that described the relationships, and the changes—here!"

She held out her incomplete lace, shaking it in Chelly's bemused face. "Look at this! See how the lines hook here—and here—and over here? And then look, if—oh, Chaos, it isn't done! But, anyway, if you—"

"Wait." Chelly held up his hands again, his eyes moving from the lace to the screen. "Wait. That's a star chart you're making."

"Well . . ." Theo blinked at him, caught breathless by the tone of his voice. "Sort of, I guess. I think of it as the shape of the relationships, but—that's what a star chart is, isn't it?"

"And this is the kid who needs to pull up her math scores?" Chelly might've been talking to himself. He reached beyond Theo and touched the control on the screen, locking the image again, then put a hand lightly on her wrist and exerted light pressure until she lowered the lace to her lap.

"Okay. Theo, listen up—I got a bunch of info to dump and I'm on a short watch. First thing is, I'm still going to be on the roster here, but mostly I'm going to be working real-time shifts at daily ops so I can get in enough time to be the official exchange student with Galtech over break. That means you're still gonna be in charge here. You been getting the Senior notices?"

She nodded.

"Good. Now, my bunk still being officially here in Erkes, that means you won't get another kid in to deal with right away—not 'til end of next term, when I fly out. I've got it set up that you're reporting to me—you tell Asu that, too. She gives you trouble, bump it to me."

"I don't think she'll give me trouble," Theo said. "She's not dumb."

"No, but she don't think," Chelly answered, which she couldn't say wasn't so. "Next thing I gotta tell you—that lace-making thing you're doing. The star map?"

Theo felt her face heat. "It helps me think to—"

"No, no. Hear me say it first, Theo, then argue—right?" He didn't wait for her to nod, just kept on going. "You need to talk to somebody—one of the advisors up—"

"I have an advisor," Theo interrupted.

"Sure you do. And if you'll stop arguing for a second and let me tell it, you'll find out where I'm going with this."

She bit her lip. "Right," she muttered.

"Yeah, that won't last," Chelly said cryptically, pulling a pen and a card out of his pocket. He frowned at the card, flipped it over and wrote something on it. "I'm giving you her name and office number. You go tomorrow, and you ask to get an intro hearing—seven minutes. What you want to tell her is just what you told me, about space not being stable, and what the revisions to the ven'Turas did, got that? Take your lace thing there with you and show it. Promise me. You're not going to say or explain anything else. Just that. Then you wait and you listen to what she's got to tell you, Theo, right? I'll send her an intro tonight when I get back, so she's expecting you—and you're not gonna make me sorry I did this."

"No," Theo said softly, feeling a lump in her chest. "No, I won't, Chelly. Thanks."

"Sheesh," he said, shaking his head ruefully. "I think I like it better when you're showing attitude." He held out the card. "Tomorrow, Theo. Skip lunch if you gotta."

"Right," she said, and slipped the card out of his fingers. "But—"

The door clicked and there was Asu, nimbly avoiding Chelly's bags, her dark face glowing and a violet-and-green lei around her neck.

"We won!" she caroled. "And Chelly is returned to us! The day is perfectly attuned!"

Chelly snorted.

"Close the door," he said, though Asu had already turned to do so. "I was just telling Theo that I'm temp-posted to daily ops. My official berth is here, but most times it'll just be the two of you. Theo's in charge, and she reports to me. We got it all set up, and I cleared it with my mentor and the dean of students."

"Of course Theo is in charge," Asu said, with the false sincerity that made Theo's teeth ache. "Theo is very responsible."

"Theo's First Bunk," Chelly said dampeningly. "Duty of privilege."

"While Second Bunk is a social butterfly," Asu answered, looking down at Theo's lap as she walked by. She shook her head. "Still you sit with the needles? Theo, you must study if you—"

"We been over that," Chelly interrupted forcefully. "Now—" He looked up at the clock, which displayed official school time, and said something under his breath.

"Look, you two, I gotta jet. Theo, you move those bags into my room, then lock it down."

"Why must you leave so soon?" Asu asked. "Duty?"

"As a matter of fact. I'm on the Student Review Board. Vanz Mancha is challenging tonight and it's my watch."

"Challenging?" Asu frowned. "Why?"

"What's 'challenging'?" Theo said at the same time.

Chelly shook his head at both of them. "There's trouble at home, and she's wild to get back there and help out. That's what she told me. And she's gotta go as a pilot, 'cause her folks haven't sent any money for fare. So, she's going to challenge—that's when you call the school's bluff, Theo. You bet you're good enough to walk out of the challenge set a pilot, even if you haven't finished your classwork. It's in the school charter, which I guess you didn't bother to read. Vanz—she's good. She'll be fine." Despite saying so, he didn't look all that certain, thought Theo.

"She'll be fine," he repeated, and shook himself, moving with quick grace toward the door. "Theo, you remember what I told you. Asu, stay outta trouble for a change. I'm gone."

The door opened, and snapped firmly shut.

"I'll make some tea," Theo offered to the closed door, and when it didn't answer she offered the same to Asu, who stood leaning against the wall, her face showing some of the exasperation that Theo felt.

Eleven

Counseling Center

Anlingtin Piloting Academy

"I see your work, Theo Waitley, and I see thought. That is good in a student and in a pilot. The opportunity in this proposition that flight space is unstatic, that I am not clear on."

Theo sat even straighter, looking up at the apparition, as who could not when faced with someone so straight-backed and firm, so immaculately balanced despite the near-aching spareness of her frame, and skin so pale it bordered on a translucent blue. Theo doubted she had ever met a woman so old.

This was Veradantha, who had found seven minutes in her schedule. The counselor had pointedly started the timer on her desk when Theo arrived, and now, it counted down relentlessly.

"These are not so novel, these ideas you have here; the Tables tell the tale, pilots of experience are familiar with these facts. Even these demonstrations you have—true, I have not seen it illustrated thus for the school standard cluster!—even these are used by some teachers and programs elsewhere."

Theo fought a grimace, and then a sigh. It hadn't been her idea that this was all original, just that it was important to her—but Chelly'd put his name on the line with sending her here, so she hoped it wasn't all going to go to dust.

The counselor stepped deliberately from one end of her office to the other—thinking, it seemed to Theo. She paused as she sipped from the coffee cup she held in one hand; bit into the pastry she held in the other. The pastry moved rhythmically up and down for a moment, then caught the cadence of the words, as if it were the pastry making the point and not the woman.

"Understand me, you have insight, and this is good, and it is good that your Senior brought this . . . energy you have . . . to my attention."

The pastry indicated Theo's handiwork, still clutched in her lap.

"I took time, Theo Waitley, to review your visit to the mountaintop."

Veradantha spoke very low, and Theo thought she made "Theo Waitley" into one word, to mirror her own single name.

Theo sighed—would she never stop hearing about that?

But if Veradantha had already reviewed that flight, she must be out of time or nearly so already! It was difficult to drag her attention from the woman, to glance at the chronometer, counting down. Except it was not counting down from seven to zero any longer, but blinking its way up from 4:45, in half-second increments.

"Nothing to say, Theo Waitley? You frowned when I mentioned your feat."

The timer flipped over from four minutes to five. Theo looked up into the lined, quizzical face and nodded once, for emphasis.

"Everyone mentions it, ma'am," she said, as calmly as she could. "All I did was what Ground told me was needed. But I survived and it makes some people think I was showing off. I didn't do it to show off. I don't like people to say so. I guess I'm still surprised that so many people think about it at all."

The pastry, much diminished, moved back and forth for several precious seconds. Veradantha's thin lips compressed into what might have been a hard smile.

"Yes, I can see that. I also can see why the Senior thought the landing worth my attention. So, Theo Waitley, do you enjoy your flying in the Slippers? I will admit that I do, though I cannot find time and energy together to take as many flights as I might."

"Yes." Theo nodded, feeling wistful. "I do like the Slippers. But now they've moved me into power group training so I can't get time."

"The universe is like that, Theo Waitley. When you are good at something, often you must give it up for something you are not so good at yet. This is inconvenient, but true."

The hand was now free of the disappeared pastry, but fascinating still, adorned as it was with several glittering rings and wrinkles so fine they looked like down.

"So you like the Slipper, and you like powered flight as well. Would you be satisfied to be an air pilot, do you think?"

The question took a moment to penetrate, and when it did, it took her breath.

On the desk, the chronometer hit seven, blinked once, and began counting down again.

"Air pilot?"

Theo heard the quaver in her voice, and winced. True, she was proud to wear the wings that Win Ton had sent her, once she'd confirmed as a rated soaring pilot. Her marks with powered craft were top-notch, too, but to stop there . . .

"Do not be kittenish on my time, Theo Waitley!"

The woman plunked the cup down on her desk, and swept fully in front of Theo, using her height and posture to loom better than anyone had ever loomed over her, including Father.

"You must understand that worlds need air pilots; in fact, in many places air pilots who fly to orbit and back are what citizens think pilots are. It is worthy work!"

Theo felt heat on her face and tried to keep it out of her voice; her stomach felt as if she'd been in a mountainside downdraft. It didn't help that she was looking up—how could someone so skinny be so formidable?

Taking a deep breath, she replied, slowly: "Yes, air pilots do worthy work. I want to know how to fly—that's useful. It's fun. It's more than fun. But, I'm here to learn to be a spaceship pilot. I don't want the sky to be my roof!"

She took another breath, suddenly struck by a terrible thought. She looked carefully at the counselor's face and asked, quietly, "Is my math that bad?"

"Piffpuff, Theo Waitley, I have not accused you of being incompetent. I asked if you would be satisfied with the title of air pilot."

The flip of hand and the huff were unnerving, but Theo resisted the urge to stand.

Veradantha tugged a bright blue notetaker or comm from her belt, her frail-looking hands flowing over the keys. She glanced at the chronometer, murmuring something that sounded like "what time?"

Theo itched to see what was on that screen but the woman cradled it and walked away from her, peering out the window overlooking the campus airfield and back at the screen, inputting something, glancing outside again. The timer was flashing now and—

"Well, Theo Waitley," Veradanth said. "I am clear that you are not dumb. I am also clear that you are inconvenient. Worse, you are inconvenient in a way that is inconvenient not only to me—I have the habit of being inconvenienced!—but to you, and to the school itself."

Veradantha stood before her, looking down with solemn eyes.

"What we shall do, you and I in our turns, is we shall be convincing when necessary and if that is not sufficient, we shall contrive. I have sent to your regular advisor to ask permission for this, of course, and then we shall see if the threads you string are useful."

The counselor paused, looking away for a moment before peering down at Theo again.

"With luck you have not seen the last of me, as I have some tests you will need to take. I have some forms for you to fill out, a questionnaire or two, they will arrive soon, as soon as permission is given, in your campus mail. These tests will perhaps not be so comfortable for you, but they will clarify things."

Clarity was something she could use, Theo knew.

"Thank you," she began, but her words were waved off.

"I see you are nearly late to your next class, unless you run, which you will do. Thank you for your time."

Theo arrived at the door barely ahead of the crowd off the hourly shuttle, her key sticking first in her pocket and then to her sweaty fingers. She wondered who'd taught them to be so noisy—yah, and they wanted to be pilots!

Asu, at least, wasn't that noisy and she spoke up—

"Hey, Theo, my key's ready! Let the pro through!"

Theo snickered and stepped aside, the rucksack brushing against the side wall with an annoying hiss.

"I bow to progress," Theo agreed, and the door opened for her.

She might have taken the earlier shuttle herself, but she'd taken the longer walk, down by Belgraid, which was a pleasantly situated second and third year dorm she'd not visited before. Not that she'd exactly planned on meeting Kara there, but she'd hoped, and since she was still feeling wrung out from her meeting she'd happily accepted Ristof's polite invitation to a small session, joining Kara and three others for what she thought would be a few minutes.

"Bowli ball, huh?" Asu looked her up and down, scowling. "I'm glad to see you getting more social, but you're going to have to run those leggings through the cleaner a dozen times to get 'em clean, and the shirt twice as many, and that will cost the room a yellow dot, I bet!"

"No! I . . ." but a quick inspection showed her roommate's fears to be not entirely unjustified.

"You can do that indoors, you know? Sign up for one of the leagues or at least stop by the pad rooms and play rated. You won't get more than scuffed. But look at you! You look like someone who walked out of a forest. You even have twigs in your hair!"

The game had been going on, Ristof said, since before breakfast, and with trade-ins and trade-outs they were shooting for third-shift lights-out. Of course there wasn't really a lights-out, that was a holdover time for the locals who'd come through residence schools all their lives, but . . .

"The real goal," Kara explained, "is to get us ready for the senior round-the-clock challenge at term end. Belgraid's gonna knock 'em this time!"

"Come, Asu, you know this was just a fun thing . . ."

"Hey, First Bunk, Chelly'd have a fit if he came in here and found that grass all over the place!"

Theo laughed and shook herself the way Coyster did when he came in from the garden. Just like her cat, she shed leaves and grass.

"How'd that meeting go?"

Asu was into the coldbox, pulling a pair of squeezewaters, calling out over her shoulder. Theo, gratefully unshod, pushed the grass and the twig she'd dutifully finger combed onto the floor toward the recycle bin with her sockfeet.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I've been waiting for some tests and forms and stuff."

Over the whuff of the floor suction came Asu's "Hunh, guess that's something." She handed over a water tube and scrunched her nose. "Theo, will you get some antisep on that hand? That's blood!"

It was blood, but not much of it, and the game had still been going strong when Theo left. She'd been vaguely trying to get out for some time, but they'd been keeping it five strong all day and it seemed rude to break it just to go back to the room. If she'd had a class to go to, it would have been different. But coming off the interview and a session reciting from memory what anyone could read in the history files, each new charge at the ball had felt as necessary as the last.

"Not dripping. I'll clean it."

"So is something going to happen now? About the math?"

Chaos!

"Asu, will you let up? Didn't I say there were forms and tests and stuff? I don't know about the math yet."

Asu laughed. "Most days I can't stand between you and that screen in there when you get in, first thing you do is check for mail. Today . . ." The laugh came back. "You must think they're here already!"

Theo let her glance drift toward the ceiling, and sighed quietly. Sometimes Asu was just too good.

"I got the shower," she said.

Theo usually didn't take long showers, so today she did. After, she made a cup of tea and unsealed the last of the chernubia she'd discovered in the school store, for a quiet one-girl snack in the common area, lights low while Asu fussed about some sports thing in the other room.

Not nearly as good as the fresh ones served by a luxury cruise liner, the snack still bore a passing resemblance to something Win Ton had smiled over, and that in turn made her smile and absently adjust the wings on her collar.

And there, a second cup of tea, and she was standing with cup in hand wondering if requesting an image from Win Ton would be bad form. Not like Asu's pet athlete's image, but . . . well, maybe, actually . . .

Asu peered into the common area, began mimicking a terminal announcer.

"Attention. Control to Pilot! Blink-blink-blink, attention, Theo!"

Asu's voice was not quite as emotionless as a good warning mode was. She waved her hands impatiently toward the desk.

"Message waiting light here, First Bunk."

Theo sighed. Sometimes it felt like things were changing too fast, and that all the messages were about her doing something more.

She took her cup with her and slid into the seat, "I hear you, I hear you."

The incoming message was from Scout Captain Cho sig'Radia. So was the third. Theo slapped the privacy button, effectively limiting the view of the screen to someone sitting in the spot she sat in.

Behind her, Asu made a sound like a harrumph.

"Must be expecting something else from the bestboy," she hazarded as she headed for the joint room. She paused. "Aren't you?" she insisted, but Theo was already twisting her thoughts to hear Cho's voice behind the words on the screen.

You have not been at all "silly" to pass the news of your recent flight to me; indeed, it is exactly the type of news one could hope for: success in flight! Being some Standards away from a sailplane run I discover the sim a joy; I hope you will not feel overburdened with the information that I, like your academy, have been pleased to share copies with several pilots. Win Ton professes a lack of surprise in your abilities, but promises his own commentary.

Theo relaxed into the seat, nearly losing the sight circle of the screen when she did. Then she sat straight up.

He hadn't been joking, she thought. If Win Ton's packet had gotten to her before Cho's message, he must have sent it immediately, by courier! Someone, some pilot, had been standing by, on her account!

Too, Cho went on, you have followed the forms precisely. I need to know these things not only for the reinforcement of my judgment on your ability, but that we make no errors in dealing with your future.

My role as sponsor requires that I take an active interest in the affairs financial attending your schooling, and in this case, with only a small and not unseemly amount of prompting, your academy and I have reached an accord on the value of your lessons for the school, and for yourself.

Following in a short while will be the contracts I have entered into on your behalf, as well as a document transferring practical control of the finances accruing to you from income derived from various uses, transformations, and recordings of your flight. Pardon that these are dry and filled with complexities well beyond the complexities of piloting equations, but such are Liaden contracts, as you will no doubt be told many times in your career. For your enjoyment, the contract in Liaden is appended to the Trade version. In short form, we have arranged for your earnings to be set against your expenses, with a 25 percent share coming direct to your spending account until all expenses are met. Please follow the instructions about passwords, account controls, and the like exactly. Once accessed the account becomes yours.

Theo leaned toward the screen. Contracts?

I have passed a copy of the sim to your mother in the hopes the pilot who trained you may see it, and rejoice in your flight.

Oh no! Kamele would not be happy. Surely, Father would—

The letters on the screen blurred slightly.

Father would do as he always did, and use his own judgment. Given that Kamele'd spent a lifetime in ignorance of his piloting, as had Theo, she hoped he'd explain the sim appropriately.

Good lift and safe landing, Pilot.

I remain

Cho sig'Radia, sponsor

Twelve

Number Twelve Leafydale Place

Greensward-by-Efraim

Delgado

The bluebells are doing well this season, Aelliana said, her voice seeming to come from just behind his left shoulder. Theo will be pleased.

A connoisseur of formal gardens might have commented that the bluebells danced the dagger's edge between "doing well" and "overexuberant." Aelliana, however, did not admire strict order in a garden. Nor did he.

And the bluebells were Theo's favorites, after all.

"We must remember to send her a picture," he murmured. From his right came the creak and smack of the garden door opening. Kamele was home from her meeting early.

"Jen Sar!" she called, her footsteps quick on the path.

He turned, smiling as she came into sight, her hair rumpled and her cheeks pink with hurry. She had a small blue envelope from Data Receiving and a folded printout in one hand; the paper fluttered as she walked.

"Don't you look the picture of indolence," she murmured, bending to kiss him on the cheek. "Grading examinations, indeed!"

"Indolence is pictured thus: The honored professor lying on the grass, his venerable head supported by a kindly and compliant friend, and the second bottle uncorked," he returned, smiling up at her. "Here you see the professor taking a rejuvenating turn in the garden before returning to his labors."

"Of course I do," she said, and shook her head in mock irritation. "Compliant."

"Also kindly," he pointed out.

"That's very true." She nodded gravely, though her eyes were sparkling. "Silver-tongue."

"It has," he acknowledged mournfully, "been a lifelong affliction."

Kamele laughed, her glance going over his shoulder. "The bluebells are taking over the garden! I've never seen them so boisterous."

"I was just thinking that we must remember to send a picture to Theo."

"Yes, we should; she must miss them." She looked back to him, her face still glowing, but tending toward seriousness. "Speaking of Theo, I have a letter from Cho sig'Radia, who sends a present—to you!"

He raised an eyebrow. "A present? To me?"

"We did agree that you are the pilot who raised Theo, did we not?"

"I seem to recall being cast in that role, yes."

"If you accept the role, you accept the rewards of the role," Kamele told him. She nodded toward the house. "If your rejuvenation is complete, we might go back inside."

"So we might."

"Would you like some coffee?" he asked, as they strolled up the pathway together. "There was a packet of Lake Country beans in today's delivery."

Kamele sighed. "That sounds lovely. There must be a way to get funding for decent coffee in Admin, but I haven't found it yet."

"Raise tuition?" he suggested, as the door opened.

"Don't think I haven't considered it," she said darkly, stepping into the kitchen ahead of him. She put the letter and the packet on the kitchen table and glanced at the coffeemaker.

"I'll do that," he said, "if you would like to change into house clothes."

Kamele grinned at him. "Thank you, Jen Sar. And by all means, do read Captain sig'Radia's letter while I'm gone. Just promise that you won't open the package until I'm back."

"That seems a fair compromise," he said placidly, moving toward the pantry. Kamele laughed; a moment later, he heard her running upstairs.

He measured the beans into the hopper, set the texture, poured water into the reservoir and touched the control. The grinder whirred quietly. He went to the table, plucked up the sheet of printout and carried it to the window, hitching a hip onto the ledge as he unfolded the paper.

I, Cho sig'Radia greet Kamele Waitley, mother of Theo, to whom one has the honor to stand as patron.

Though term evaluations are ahead of us, yet I have received news of young Theo's progress which may put to rest such doubts as may have lingered in a mother's heart. I learn that our fledgling has performed very well in actual flight conditions. Indeed, she appears to have an exact and intuitive understanding of piloting at the hands-on level, which must—and does—gratify a hopeful patron. Theo has gained the attention of her elders in this and has been, so I am informed by Senior Instructor Pilot yos'Senchul, placed upon an accelerated flight path. Instead of remaining the full term with Slippers, over which she has demonstrated superiority, she has been moved up to powered flight and will soon know the pleasure of being wholly the master of her craft. The particular flight which drew special attention has been deemed to have some positive value as an auxiliary teaching aid by the school and by the aircraft manufacturers and permission to reproduce it for these purposes has been requested.

As the hopeful pilot's patron, I have negotiated a royalty contract with Anlingdin Academy in her name. Earnings under the term of this contract will be set against Theo's expenses at academy, with twenty-five percent deposited directly into an account under her sole ownership. As I understand custom, Theo has achieved the status of adult, and thus may take ownership of these financial properties, as well as administering her own contracts. If my understanding is insufficient, please teach me better and I shall make what amends I might.

Appended to this letter is a small gift. I ask, if it does not offend custom, that it be shared with the pilot who, with yourself, raised Theo. It will perhaps be of some interest.

It is my hope that this letter has found you in good health, with your goals well in hand, and I remain

Cho sig'Radia

Captain of Scouts

Jen Sar Kiladi refolded the printout along its creases, and sighed lightly.

From its place on the counter, the coffeemaker chimed; and he heard Kamele's footsteps on the stairs.

The coffee was poured, sampled and pronounced delicious. It being one of Kamele's small rituals to savor and prolong such moments, when the beverage was worthy, Jen Sar recruited himself to patience, and sipped again from his own cup.

He had taught himself to drink coffee; a graduate student could not afford to be too nice about the form in which one found one's caffeine, and Professor Kiladi had been a grad student, so it said in his dossier, on the very Terran world of Barvenna. He had, therefore, and by necessity, developed a tolerance. Later, under Kamele's tutelage, he had learned an appreciation.

The Lake Country was pleasant, medium bodied, aromatic, and with an aftertaste of raspberry. He concentrated on the flavor, and did not glance at the little package, still unopened on the kitchen table.

Kamele lowered her cup and smiled at him. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"I had not wished to intrude upon your moment," he said, truthfully.

"Of course, I'm not curious!" Kamele made one of her swooping, ironic gestures, her fingers approaching perilously close to his cup.

He avoided tragedy by lifting the endangered item and looked at her over the rim. "I wonder," he murmured. "Perhaps we had best just put it away."

Kamele laughed, and Jen Sar sighed dolefully.

"As transparent as that, am I? Very well, then, yes. With your permission, I will open it."

"I can't imagine what it could be."

He turned away, placing his cup carefully on the table before taking up the small blue-blazoned packet. It was not heavy, but of course, it would not be; data chips weighed very little.

A sim, Aelliana murmured inside his head, and sighed lightly. Perhaps it won't be . . . very . . . showy. She paused. Of course, it is Theo.

Of course, he thought, it is Theo. He opened the envelope and turned, holding the chip high on display.

"There!" he exclaimed. "Now curiosity is satisfied!"

Kamele laughed again and shook her head. "No, my friend, curiosity doesn't begin to be satisfied." She nodded toward the common room. "Why don't you get the screen ready? I'll refresh our cups."

"Well," he said conversationally, as on screen the little glide-plane played with its tow string. "A flight sim, and very agreeable it is, too."

"Theo is flying this—this craft?" Kamele asked from beside him.

He nodded. "We are seeing from the pilot's perspective—her instruments, her environment. If we wished—and had the equipment to hand—we might fly it with her and thus learn something of her technique; a useful tool for teaching other pilots."

Kamele nodded, her face rapt as she watched Slipper Fourteen raise its nose, dip its wing and slip free of its tow.

"That was neatly done," he said for Kamele's benefit. "Ah, and see? She has caught the thermal. With luck, this will be a long glide."

"How beautiful," Kamele breathed. "Look at those mountains! I had no idea that flying could be so peaceful."

"It can be," he said cautiously, watching the mountains with mistrust. Treacherous things, mountains, and a glide-plane no equal partner for the winds that often danced around such places.

"Flight GT S14, Academy GT S14," a man's voice, terse and businesslike, broke into the peaceful sail through sunny skies. "Academy GT S14, acknowledge."

"Flight GT S14 here." Theo's voice was—not calm. Bright. Sharp, even. Jen Sar scanned the instruments, took note of variometer and altitude.

". . . everyone out of the sky . . ." the flight-master was saying, urgently. "Emergency."

Beside him, Kamele had gone very still.

"I can stuff it on the plateau in five minutes," Theo said, and it was the utter surety in her voice that made Jen Sar's stomach tighten.

"A drill," he managed, for Kamele's stillness. He touched her hand, and smiled when she glanced at him. "She will need to learn to react correctly in an emergency. Of course, there are drills, so that she may prepare while others more experienced watch over her."

Instructor El is worried, Aelliana commented, which he had thought, too, and which he was not about to say to Kamele's strained smile.

The little ship went sideways, and he felt Kamele tense beside him.

"She needs to adjust altitude, and quickly—Ground had said it was an emergency," he said, keeping his voice soothing. "She is being perfectly safe." Safe, but aggressive. His fingers twitched when she hit the standing wave, the slip-string snapping and the variometer beginning to squeal.

"The nose . . ." he murmured, but there, she had it; the nose was down, and she was on course. The wings thrummed, protesting the service she required of them, and the radar telling stories to frighten children—

But Theo was no longer a child; she was a pilot in command of her craft. Amid the din of scolding instruments her soarplane dutifully sideslipped, crabbing against the sheer wall. She was in charge, keeping her craft level—and the nose was up; she was rising, far too close to the wall, and—

"Not great, Theo," she said, her voice torn by the wind and the noise of the instruments. "Not great."

He scanned the plateau, saw the spot, and his fingers twitched again, reaching for levers that weren't available to him, and they were down—no! A bounce, sternly brought under control, and then they were down, in a chancy location, but safe enough for now, and the pilot had reported her situation and received the order to clear the craft.

Inside his head, Aelliana cheered.

He relaxed into his seat, suddenly aware that he had tensed forward, and sighed.

"That was . . . dangerous," Kamele said in a small, shaken voice. "Wasn't it?"

"Oh." He turned. Her face was paler even than usual, her eyes wide. "Kamele . . ."

"Tell me," she interrupted. "If what we just saw—was Theo in danger? Yes or no? That was not a drill!"

"There is always a risk, in piloting," he said slowly. "Was Theo in danger—I cannot say—" He raised his hand as she began to speak.

"No. Kamele. I am not softening this for you. The truth is that I cannot say. In my experience, a pilot is in danger when a pilot feels that she is in danger. It seems to me that Theo did not consider herself to be in danger. She had a knotty problem to solve, and a good deal of maneuvering to do. But I had no sense—from the action of the craft, or from her voice—that she felt endangered." He sighed, and put his hand over hers where it was fisted on her knee.

"Likely it was not a drill."

"And Cho sig'Radia is selling this—this frightening—"

"To pilots," he broke in, remembering to keep his voice soft. "To pilots, such a tape is not so much frightening as—exhilarating." He moved his shoulders at her look of disbelief. "Pilots are a disreputable lot, I fear."

"You were worried," she accused him. "You stopped talking, and leaned forward, reaching for—as if you would fly it down yourself!"

He looked toward his hand, still forward on his knee, ready to take the stick, and back to Kamele.

"I was worried," he admitted. "One worries about one's daughter in treacherous moments." He smiled suddenly, pride washing him. "But I worry about her far less now." The smile widened, and became a grin.

"Kamele, on my honor—that was a beautiful landing!"

Thirteen

Ozar Rokan Memorial Flight Center

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Gear down and locked.

Theo felt the gear down part in the touch of the controls, and the locked part firmly through her seat as the well-used and surely misnamed Star King Mark II settled into landing mode. The instruments confirmed what she already knew, and she sang out to traffic, who acknowledged visual politely, and gave her permission to do what she was going to anyway, which was touch-and-go number nine.

For luck, she touched her key, plugged into the board and counting her PIC—Pilot in Command time that was—in one-second increments. The hand-talk shorthand go good was sufficient, really, even if not as satisfying as saying the words, but she was learning not to talk to herself so much, and this time she managed not to say anything at all, except what was business. The PIC timer showed 35.5. Not so long to go, after all.

She sighed noisily, communicator button off. No need to share that, either. For a while, after she'd gotten pushed into the Advanced Power, she'd hear mock-cloned, "Not good, Theo," half-whispered or louder when she walked anywhere around the airfield.

More than once she'd also heard "Prissy little attitude case" or worse from students she'd passed in the flight lists.

Still, there were good days when she could smile and wave, or even chat and play bowli ball with Kara, Vin, and the rest of the crew from Belgraid.

The cross-breeze was minimal and she let the little jet drift a hair left of the centerline before applying a modest correction. The altimeter on the Star King was off by at least a short hop, she was sure, and the stick had a click in it—but what could you expect from one of the planes anyone air-rated had to fly for fifty hours in person and another fifty on sim before they could move on? It rarely got a good cleaning or airing out, or even a proper interior wipe-down.

The problem with touch-and-go for her was that after a while the sheer sameness was boring—no new scenery, and not much of a new challenge. It probably didn't help that the catch-up schedule Veradantha had pushed through meant she was in the plane or in sim every day, no break. And this plane, nearly surplus, was the one she'd been saddled with most times because she was the push-through. Serviceable yes; comfortable, not exactly.

On the other hand, next week she was scheduled for a run over the mountain and up the coast for a landing at an airstrip she'd never seen, and a run-back the same day. That would be good . . . whatever plane she was in.

Now, the field zoomed up at her; on the instrument panel the altitude ticked down and she backed the throttle just a hair more. The altitude annoyingly read zero while she flew on another moment, and before the touch of the rear gear, and the front. The craft decelerated and she saw disinterested crew working strip-side and heard the confirming "Touch AP44," from a bored voice just as she began to really kick the power up.

That quickly she pulled back, felt the rotation and rise, chinged the gear up, reveling in the pressure on her back, and saw blue—

If there'd been a camera on her face instead of a recorder logging the instruments it would have caught a wide wicked grin. This was her last go-round today and she meant to break her personal best time to altitude yet again. The ship might be an old one, but it was willing to press her hard into the seat and climb out into the clouds.

It was good to get a thrill just before another run at math for dummies.

* * *

Theo was peeved. As good as things were going in the air, that was how bad they were on the ground today.

This was the second time in six days AP44 was stuck in a holding while some student controller bobbled the patterns, and then when things were fixed she'd been last in line for landing, with her math class a forced-march across campus if she missed the jitney.

The final landing, like the touch-and-go series, was quiet and fine, and then they'd backed a shuttle food cart out into the taxi strip where it stalled, and then—

There was only so much hurry-up she could do. Her taxi run finally came to a halt at slot 5 . . .

"AP44, can you pull that on down to maintenance bay while you're at it and save the crew a hike?"

AP44 was not a road racer on the ground and she hardly saved anyone a hike since they had to bring by a student ground-guide with his paddles to direct her. She tried not to frown at him—she'd done ground-guide for the first time not long before and knew it to be one of the more anxiety-producing chores at the school. Having all those wings at the ends of things made even small turns potentially dangerous.

Regs being regs, she didn't pop the canopy until the engine was winding down. The key read 36.1 as she palmed it, and she was in such a hurry she kept the helmet on until feet touched ground.

The ground-guide nodded, smiled and said, "Good landings, Pilot, good go!"

She smiled back and waved, hurling, "Thanks," into the air behind her and ran up the ramp toward the Ops office to sign out.

Wilsmyth, her chief tormentor from the Vestrin, stood at ramp-top, wearing the blue cap and armband of the shift boss, waiting for her, the official shift book in hand.

"Well there, Waitley, looks like you're doing real good in the air. Real good. Better than a lot of us that's been through on regular time, looks like, even in the old ship. Shame they still got you stuck in backwards math, don't you think?"

When he said "old ship" he waved the book in her direction.

Way being blocked, Theo stopped, hand-sign saying, next class, can't talk.

"Yeah, well, we all got classes sometimes, don't we? Look, I was thinking it's a shame you keep getting stuck with the old lady out there, you know? I mean, you got the luck of the draw, I guess. But look, you're doing better than some of us figured you would, and I wonder if you'd like to stop up to Castlin Quad later. Seniors are looking for a couple quick hands to back us up for the bowli-ball challenge at—"

"I have class, Wil. Really. And I've been working out with Belgraid, anyway."

He waved the shift book at her again, not gently, but said her name.

"Theo. Really. Listen, see, come on up to the quad, get some high class bowli ball in, maybe stop in after, for some refreshments—and we can get you set. Chelly said you had a rough upbringing, and don't know how to act any better. He thinks you'll finish the course here, if you get a break. Let Belgraid see who the good hands belong to, see? Get that break, you know? Might even be able to get you into the new Star King. It's type-certified a Mark II, but brand new—practially a Mark III in disguise."

Theo heard what Wil was saying almost as through a filter: no matter what nonsense he was offering, she needed to get moving. But she had to get by him.

"Thanks, no. I'll stick with Belgraid,"

"Just no?" He frowned, and his voice was louder than it needed to be. "You think no is the right answer?"

This, Theo thought, was not good. She'd managed to make him mad, somehow, even though she'd been polite. He was waving the shift book with energy: she could feel the breeze against her neck.

Theo tensed, fighting the instinct to drop into the ready stance, trying to look peaceful—or at least reasonable.

"I've got to go to class," she said, as calmly as she could. "Let me by."

"Right," Wil said, a note of finality in his voice. "I hear what you're saying. But this isn't all social, you know. I'm shift boss. Click your key in here, so we can sync the records—you know the drill!"

From the Ops room beyond him, someone yelled, "New shift coming in!"

"Right with you, Bell, right with you," Wil yelled back without even a glance over his shoulder. He yanked the plug out of the book and thrust it at her face. "You're on my shift," he snapped. "Key!"

At last! Maybe she'd only miss half of math.

Theo snatched the key from her public pocket, but Wil was holding the plug at an awkward angle. She jimmied her key, pushed—the accept light lit orange, then he almost dropped the instrument, forcing her to let go of the key or risk twisting the connection. He grabbed the book more firmly, peering down at it, and muttering loudly as he manipulated some keys.

"You really think you're something, don't you? Can't figure why it is you got no official math but fly like a vet. Your father was a pilot, hey? Can't nobody find any current pilot time for Jen Sar Kiladi."

"Key," she said around the growing coldness in her stomach, and added: "You can't find current flight time because my father is a retired pilot."

Wil snarfed a laugh and waved the shift book, with her key still attached.

"Retired? Or is that 'decertified'?"

He's trying to make you lose your temper, Theo told herself. Problem being, that he was succeeding.

"Key," she said again, between gritted teeth.

"Not going to talk about Daddy?"

"I want my key. Now."

"There you go again, always pushing for a fight. You act more like a smuggler's get than anybody civilized."

"Key," she said, closing in slowly.

"Well, your choice. Play with Belgraid and live down a decert dad if you can. We coulda made it easy for you."

Her key clicked out and he tossed it, nearly beyond her, chuckling as she scrambled.

Key in hand, she was on her way around him, thinking about math and how fast she was going to have to run—

"Close to thirty-three hours on there," Wil said, like he was talking to himself. "Who'd've thought somebody who can't add could've got that far?"

Theo froze, then turned, carefully, key gripped in her right hand, helmet in her left.

"Say again," she said softly. "How much time?"

Wil grinned and glanced down, too casually, to consult the face of the instrument again.

"You really can't count, can you? Three two point nine hours. Says so right here."

He turned the display for her, his grin even less certain.

"Fix it," she said. "I have more time than that."

"No," he answered, "you don't. This is the official shift-read."

"I had more time than that when I started today."

"The key count's official," he insisted. "This is your official time, which will be entered into your log."

"Fix it."

"You're really pushing it, Waitley. You can't expect everything to go your way if you don't work with seniors . . ."

The shift bell sounded, yanking Theo's attention back to the rest of the world.

Math!

"You'll fix this when I come back," she said, turning back toward Ops, but he used the shift book like a shepherd's crook, blocking her way.

"Thumbprint, Waitley. Validate it."

"It's in dispute," she snapped.

She started for Ops again, ducking under the shift book.

"Waitley, validate this record or lose it all!" he yelled, following her into the room, where Bell was lounging against the desk, an interested expression on his face.

"Thumbprint!" Wil shouted. He shoved the book at her face, almost striking her, but she fended the thing off with an elbow. He waved it again, catching her a stinging blow flat on the cheek and ear, and before she realized it, Theo was moving.

She swung her helmet into his gut, but he danced partly out of the way, now using the book to prod at her face. She knew the counter for that, though. She ducked, twisted—and she was half behind him, fending off his elbow with her forearm as he tried to strike, rather than dance.

He swung hard, cussing and yelling; there was blood dripping from somewhere, but this move she'd seen on the ship when the other pilots were playing and all you needed to do really was that duck, right into the pelvis and—

Wil was flat out on the floor, dazed, his breath coming in large gasps. The shift book lay against the desk at Bell's feet. Bell, eyes wide, was standing with hands low, nonthreatening, looking between Wil and Theo in wonderment, and then directly at Theo.

"One-handed! I can't believe it, you took him one-handed!" His face changed, ruddy cheeks going white. He reached to the desk, slapping a button.

The security gong rang about the time Theo realized that the blood was coming from the stinging area on the side of her face. She held her hand there, to stop the blood, but the gong kept ringing.

Fourteen

Sturtevan Hall Dispensary

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Floor tile can be very interesting, especially when it's a floor carefully, nay, perfectly set with borders of local stones from local artisans, and then sealed and bonded with a transparent, diamond-hard finish. The subtle blues and greys, combined with a flash of silver and the rare but welcome reds and oranges created a free-form flowing image of waterfall and fish, or stream and birds, depending on the focus of the eye, and the angle of the light.

Theo sat, staring at the beautiful work, thinking, When you have a school or college and someone gives you money to name a hall after their particular heroic family member, you can do that kind of stuff, like make a med clinic into a work of art.

Here, the floor did not merely meet the walls, it curved up and seamlessly became the wall. No errant dirt allowed, no buildup of dust, no collection point for contagion, no dimming of the beautiful floor of Sturtevan Hall's dispensary.

Theo sat in a chair, sorb-pad held to the side of her face, tension singing from her shoulders, studying the pattern of the tile, doing her best not to think too much about how she'd managed to get into a fight. She never got into fights. Well, not that often . . . and that made the tile much more interesting until the attendant came back with the med techs.

They'd shaved her hair on the left and a patch a little higher to get at the cut, the slender med tech with his grad-student tags soothing her with his quiet voice and gentle fingers as the other wielded the shave wand with dexterity.

"We have permission then, to heal these problems?"

When he said that he pulled back so she could see his startling grey eyes and serious gold-toned face. He drew his hand down the side of her face in front of her ear, perhaps illustrating these problems.

She nodded, her fingers repeating yes.

He sighed, the corners of his mouth quirking.

"Were you speechless, I would accept, but you are not speechless and we must both hear you say so; it is in the nature of being witness to each other, you understand." Again he gently touched her face. "So, I may heal these problems?"

"Yes," she managed, "you may heal this problem."

"That is well said, Theo Waitley. No concussion for you, and none I hear for the gentleman in the next room. You may relax, please."

She tried, thinking of a dance Bek had taught her, all languid circles and limpid ovals, but the sleepy patterns kept morphing into the sharper moves of defense dance.

"It is adrenaline," the tech murmured lightly. "You are well served. Here, let me look again."

He bent close; she could hear his breathing. He spoke several syllables she didn't understand, to which the other tech made a quick reply. She heard the rustle of a lab coat, and from the corner of her eye saw a small object trade hands.

"Please, then, sit back, and be comfortable. Two steps here, if you will pull your patience together."

She smiled and managed a weak laugh, nodding. He bent forward again, his voice so low it almost put her to sleep.

"This is fine, this is fine, ah, in a twelve-day your boyfriend will kiss it and all will be well. A clean cut after all, which the blood has cleansed, as it should. This, this stings, in a moment, but it will be well."

Theo shivered then, the sudden thought of having Win Ton being close enough to touch her face reminding her somehow that now she had a lot of explaining to do, to Father, Win Ton, to Cho. To Kamele!

She heard the other med tech giggle something about Theo "needing a boyfriend with quick moves" and then there came the zzzizzizit of a cool spray, which, after a moment, did sting. When her concentration came back the med tech with the spray said said, "A moment, Theo Waitley, let me check the scalp here; your muscles are quite tense."

His fingers touched her scalp above and then behind her ear, traced a curve down toward her shoulder.

"Dancer," he said, so soft he was probably talking to himself. Theo relaxed under his touch.

"You will wish to dance gently tomorrow and the next day—call it a prescription: you must dance gently. You should dance every day. This will be good practice, for as a courier pilot you will need to stand as ready as you did today. A moment more, if you please, Theo Waitley; you will relax, we will together permit these muscles to relax even more . . ."

He did something with his hands, touching one close to the affected area and one to the other side of her head, spreading warmth—

"One additional therapy," he said gently, "and your skin will find itself and we shall soothe it together and cover with just a slight tape . . . she who flies gliders, these muscles we need to relax, we need them to relax so that the parts of you go together properly. You need not always be on the verge of fight, which is wearing and tenses muscles. So, accepting the capability to act, that is good. What is needed, now, is for you to let these muscles relax, to let the skin be natural. This is how we refuse scars the opportunity to form. Let you dance a moment in your head, with your eyes closed, the move that most powers you, then the move that most relaxes you."

With eyes closed she saw Win Ton, dancing beside her, his eyes glinting mischief; felt her own move in response to his joy and the pattern—and sighed.

"Yes, that is fine, that is fine. Ah, excellent, let those emotions work for you. And now the coolmister . . ."

There came another zzzizzizit of spray, like fog on her face, and the touch of fingers and a flower smell that reminded her of bluebells and Coyster and home.

When she opened her eyes, the grey eyes of the med tech were surprisingly close, as if he were watching her whole face and person.

He gave a half bow, and reached about to pull a touch pad to her.

"If I may have your thumbprint, Theo Waitley, there will be two pills for pain, which you will not need tonight, but which I am required to issue. The skin cover will come off in the shower in three days; it is best if you not touch it before."

"Thank you," she managed, and stood. She felt . . . light, and . . . calm. Comfortable in her own skin.

"Thank you," she said again, and bowed.

Fifteen

Adminstrative Hearing Room Three

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

There was a hearing, scheduled immediately, according to regs. Immediately in this case being the first hour of evening watch.

Theo was glad of the delay. Math for dummies was long dismissed. She wrote a note to the instructor, explaining her absence, which was required, then took a shower, being careful not to get the covering over her cut wet, and dressed. She pinned Win Ton's wings to her collar, and made herself a cup of tea.

Good tea, Father used to say, was worth more than its weight in rare wine. She didn't have rare wine, but she did have some tolerably good tea. She sat in the comfiest chair in the joint room, making sure to lean back into the cushion, closed her eyes and sipped.

Carefully, she did a self-assessment. She was still feeling kind of floaty, which she thought might be let-down from the adrenaline, like the medic had said. The calm . . . inner calm, she thought, savoring her tea.

Pilot, that's what that was. Pilots had inner calm. The sample reports they'd been reading made that clear enough. Pilots acted for the best good of ship, passengers and cargo. That meant more than having good reaction times; it meant being calm enough to think well in emergencies.

Since she was going to be a pilot, no matter what Wilsmyth and the people like him tried to do to stop her, it seemed like calmness was going to be a good habit to cultivate.

She sighed, and finished her tea, wondering how the scene with Wil would have played out, if she'd managed to stay calm. Whether she'd reacted well to the emergency—well, she guessed she'd find out. Opening her eyes, she looked to the clock.

Real soon now.

Veradantha and Pilot yos'Senchul were waiting for her at the door to Hearing Room Three.

"Waitley," yos'Senchul said, his hand giving her a simultaneous, Welcome. He bowed slightly, which was perhaps a sign of the seriousness of the moment.

Veradantha merely nodded. "You are prompt, Theo Waitley. This is good. You display a becoming lack of anger. This is also good. The matter before us should not take much of our time. Be sober, be thoughtful, be alert, and all is well."

"Yes, ma'am," Theo said, looking between the two of them.

"We are here as your advisors," yos'Senchul said, moving his hand toward the door. "Please, after you."

At the table between her two advisors, Theo made sure she had her back against the chair, folded her hands on the table, and advertently noted the location of the second door.

As she settled and looked around, she was aware of the solemn patience of both of her tablemates.

Between them they'd had a lot of practice being patient, she supposed, with Flight Instructor yos'Senchul having to deal with wannabe pilots all the time, and Veradantha—and Veradantha having had more years than Theo could imagine to . . . and there, so much for patience. Veradantha placed a small flat object on the table, flashed her hand over it, and settled back, at ease now that the clock was running.

People were settling into place at the other tables. Wilsmyth sat with an administrator or teacher she didn't recognize, pointedly looking away from her, mostly at the pile of hard copy in front of him.

Chelly was at the head table, such as it was—it was hard to have a head table with three rectangular tables arranged in a triangle shape and each with three chairs sitting behind it—but there he was, very busily not looking at her and not looking at Wil, either. Since Wil sat in the middle of his table as she did at hers, that left Chelly a tunnel straight ahead to look at, along with his notebook, and the people who flanked him. Wil's table still lacked his second advisor, but it wasn't quite the hour yet, according to Veradantha's clock, which was official enough for Theo.

The door opened, admitting Commander Ronagy, who looked around, frowned and pulled the door sharply closed behind her.

"Mister Frosher," she said, "please designate one of your associates to take the empty seat; I'll sit to your right at head table."

Chelly looked to his right and left.

"Dorts is a pilot," he said quietly, "so someone in Admin, it looks like. Goueva, that fits you several times."

The plump woman lifted a hand in acknowledgment, gathered up her notebook, and moved over to Wilsmyth's table with a minimum of fuss. The Commander slid into the newly vacated chair.

Right, Theo thought. Veradantha is here as Admin, too. Keeping track of jobs is hard.

Chelly nodded all around as if counting, rapped quietly on the desk in front of him, and began the session.

"Thank you all for coming on short notice; as desk man on Ops the decision to convene is my responsibility. This is an informal fact-finding session convened by the officers of the watch as per standing orders in instances where accidents or conflicts involve the need for medical intervention or staff attention; no notes are to be taken and no notes are to be taken away. Should no consensus be reached over the items under discussion this evening, a formal process will begin, possibly as soon as the close of this session."

Chelly's voice was good and strong for all that he was reading from a cheat sheet, with the head of the academy by his side. "Does any member of this fact-finding wish to go directly to formal process? If so, please state your case now."

Peripheral vision is a wonderful thing, except that it almost cost Theo an inadvertent laugh as hands on both sides of her flashed quick instructions, Veradantha's No perhaps a tenth-beat behind yos'Senchul's silence.

Chelly looked around, checking with the others at the front table before looking toward Wil, and then, almost pointedly, at Theo. She refolded her hands—left over right—and looked right back at him. Inner calm.

Chelly let the quiet stretch a moment longer, then nodded, naming all present so that he was sure who was who, and so they could be too, then returned to the cheat sheet.

"With the consensus of all present parties I will state the situation as it came to the attention of Ops."

Inner calm.

Chelly's recitation was bare-boned: a call for medical assistance with security backup came during the early evening free-flight period, with a witness reporting "a discussion or something" between a pilot and the acting field coordinator during which one person "was just about knocked out one-handed" and the other was "bleeding to beat Betelgeuse."

"A moment, Mr. Frosher."

Chelly stopped, head turning rapidly. The Commander's hand motion was a soothing For clarity toward Chelly—and a scathing discussion talk talk discussion as she glanced between Wil and Theo. Her look was less than warm and Theo wished she had some tea to sip on.

"I've been called from my dinner to discuss a discussion between two of our students? I see. Please continue."