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  Dulsey looked up as he entered the workroom, her right hand curled before her, as if she held something captive, but not too close, within the cage of her fingers.

  “How fares the pilot?” she asked.

  “Better than when we took him up; less well than I would like to see him.” He sighed. “It was not my plan nor my intent to set up a hospice for wounded Scouts.”

  She laughed softly. “A return to your origins.”

  He stared at her, then allowed himself a chuckle.

  “I had considered myself a revolutionary!”

  “A revolutionary who gathered to him those in need of repair before they could be put to work for his cause.”

  “Would you have me as cold as that?”

  “Not cold,” she said, glancing down at her curled fingers. “Practical.”

  “Even worse! But you are troubled.”

  “No,” she said, frowning slightly. “Not troubled. Bemused. I hope you will know what to think, and what we ought to do.”

  “I hope so too,” he said, when she seemed to hesitate. It had been some number of hundred years since he had seen Dulsey hesitant, except as a subterfuge. He wondered what that might portend, and felt a slight shiver overtake him. Korval and Korval’s luck. The Directors of the Tanjalyre Institute had perhaps been correct in breaking the mold from which Cantra yos’Phelium had been cast. A pity they had waited until she was free of their influence before doing so.

  No, that was an unkindness, and moreover it ignored his own involvement in keeping Pilot Cantra alive. It would have been almost as easy—and far simpler—to have allowed her to die, and Garen, too, had it come to that. But he considered himself a revolutionary, and so he had opted to repair that which had the potential to confound his enemies.

  Which Cantra had done.

  Which she had very much done.

  There might even, Uncle acknowledged, be debt on his side. Convenient, then, that here was come Cantra’s many times great-grandchild, in need. Less convenient, of course, if this yos’Phelium died. This yos’Phelium was no kinless, careless pirate, but an elder belonging to the considerable socioeconomic force known as Clan Korval.

  There were few entities in the universes that Uncle troubled to fear, but Clan Korval . . . inspired caution. Of late, they had been beset, and had thereby suffered some loss of strength. He doubted that the delm of Korval would be so rash as to place the Dragon in opposition to the Uncle, but . . . Korval’s memory was long. And they would not always be weak.

  “But what bemuses you?” he asked Dulsey, as still she hesitated.

  She looked up, a frown line between her eyes. Grey eyes. She preferred grey eyes. It was in the chart.

  “I was,” she said slowly, “preparing the pilot’s leather for cleaning and repair. I had put the jacket on the bench, turned away to set the unit . . . and when I turned back—these were on the bench.”

  She raised her hand and opened her fingers, carefully, but with no conscious drama.

  Nestled on her palm were two . . . seed pods, such as might fall from a tree. Round, green, and unexceptional.

  “They must, I think, have been in a pocket,” Dulsey continued. “However, nothing else that had been in his pockets—license, hide-aways, money—had come free. Only these.”

  Only those.

  Fruit of Korval’s Tree. Some would say, Korval’s damned Tree. Perhaps even, Korval’s damned, meddling Tree.

  He might, thought Uncle, gazing down at the pods on Dulsey’s palm, be the only one left who remembered the name of the great race of trees.

  Ssussdriad.

  No, he corrected himself. Surely, Korval remembered. It was not the sort of detail Cantra would have failed to record.

  “What must we do?” Dulsey asked.

  Uncle sighed; suppressed an urge to snatch the things up and drop them in the nearest disposal unit.

  No.

  No.

  To destroy the seed pods would be, he felt, an error. Perhaps, a very great error.

  He could afford no errors in this.

  “I fear,” he said, unwillingly, “I very much fear, Dulsey, that we must bring the pilot awake.”

  And hope that Korval’s Luck was sufficient to allow them all to survive it.

  — • —

  The next stop on the proposed loop was a system with three gas giants and two habitable worlds. The first world, Chustling, held a good orbit just inside the inner part of the habitable zone, while Vincza and its moon followed a more elliptical orbit that went from the outer third of the habitable zone to the far edge, with the lunar cycle helping determine weather. The two worlds shared an intermediate orbital market called Tradedesk—Bechimo’s third stop on the loop.

  “My preference,” Theo said as she stretched the growing cord-mass in her hands to revisualize the location of one node, “is to have a schedule in place that we can use for the entirety of the run to Spwao. It’s good to have overlap, especially some social overlap for the pilots!”

  Joyita made no comment, though the work screen updated the ship’s schedule with a half-dozen possibles, as Bechimo projected arrivals.

  Clarence nodded, and tapped the screen ruminatively with the quiet end of a long pen.

  “Thanks, Bechimo. Here’s the problem for us, Theo. They’ve already done some time-splicing there on Tradedesk so there’s an in-between shift for the Market. You can come and go whenever you want, but the trading zone’s on its own strict day that don’t match Chustling or Vincza, necessarily. Not to say, us. We won’t be knowing,” he said, with an emphasis on “know,” and scrabbling some hard lines under what looked like an air wing of some kind that was taking shape on his art pad, “if we need to talk in person or work through info committees or what. Shan gave us some names, you say, but we’re starting to see that names don’t necessarily make the thing easy.”

  “Maybe the names do make it easy,” Theo interrupted—and laughed. “Let’s hope not.”

  Clarence grinned.

  “What we don’t know makes it hard to plan,” he continued. “Unless you want to declare us on ship-time like we was a cruise liner or Dutiful Passage and make them work to us.”

  “Yeah, that’ll happen.” Theo laughed again and shook her head, looking down at her lace. “So what you’re saying is, we need to be flexible, and plan after we have something to plan with.”

  “Not the most efficient way, maybe . . .” Clarence said.

  “But maybe the pilot got ahead of herself again,” Theo finished, and nodded. “So, we’ll wait and take a reading from dock.”

  She rose, rolling her lace as she did so.

  “What I’m going to do while I wait, is take my off-shift and have a nap. It comes to me that we’ll all want to be well rested at Tradedesk. Bechimo, would you please pull whatever current trade info we’ve got on Ynsolt’i and put it in my working file? The other thing I’m thinking is that we ought to start paying our own way!”

  “Yes, Pilot!” Bechimo said.

  Joyita, in Screen Six, only nodded.

  TWELVE

  Spwao System Arrival

  Dulsey’s touch was softer than his; thus, it was Dulsey who tucked the warmest blanket they possessed ’round the pilot, and placed his head on her knee. The insults against his dermis had been sealed with new skin, thin and livid. The arm . . . the arm had nearly been severed, and, with the internal injuries cataloged by the field ’doc, was the chiefest reason Uncle had hesitated to wake his patient. Such work as was required ought not to be interrupted.

  And yet, there were the seed pods.

  He could, Uncle reminded himself, afford no errors in this.

  If only he could be certain that he was not about to make one.

  He sat on the rug beside the repair unit, positioned so that his face would be the first thing the wounded pilot would see when he opened his eyes. Crossing his legs, he glanced down at his hand. The seed pods fit easily into his palm, as green and as fresh-seeming as if they
had only a moment ago been loosed from branch and leaf.

  He sighed, and looked up.

  “Now,” he said, and Dulsey snapped an ampule under the unconscious man’s nose.

  The stimulant was mild, for they did not dare risk him starting and doing himself a further hurt. Still, it should not have taken so very long to . . .

  Dark brows twitched. Black eyes gleamed from behind sheltering lashes.

  “Daav yos’Phelium, Uncle greets you,” he said, choosing to speak Liaden, and in the mode between comrades, which would surely be understood, no matter if his thought processes were addled by his injuries, or by the interrupted healing.

  “You are wounded, and in the care of myself and my associate.”

  “. . . wounded . . .” The voice was like a file over metal. “. . . status . . .”

  “Stablized at competence level seven-five. That I have wakened you places you in more danger. But I have these, which may assist, and which I thought it best not to withhold.”

  He raised one of the pods toward the pilot, expecting . . . hope, perhaps. Eagerness.

  The pilot screwed his eyes shut, and turned his face into Dulsey’s knee.

  “. . . no . . .”

  Uncle shared a speaking look with Dulsey, who softly stroked the pilot’s hair, murmuring, “Come, it will surely do you good. Shall we open it for you? I have seen the way of it, long ago.”

  “. . . Aelliana . . .” he grated. “. . . not . . . for . . . me.”

  Uncle quickly withdrew the pod in favor of the second.

  “I am maladroit,” he murmured. “Forgive me. There are two. This one is surely your own.”

  Despite the blanket and the warmth of the room, the pilot had begun to shiver. Uncle cast a concerned look at the portable readout. They needed to end this quickly, or it would be ended, indeed.

  “Pilot?” Dulsey took the second pod and brought it near the patient’s nose.

  He stiffened, then relaxed all at once, shoulders shaking in what might, impossibly, have been laughter.

  “. . . not . . . ripe . . .”

  — • —

  The drop-in was quiet, with Bechimo offering up a minimal announcement only after they’d settled into an orbit well off the ecliptic. Monitoring traffic had been worthwhile, giving them a chance to explore the chatter as well as the official channels. Spwao system was much noisier than Cresthaller and much quieter than Frenzel, with a lot of the low-power local talk spoken in an off-Terran that was soothing to the ears for all that it wasn’t always easily decipherable on quick listen.

  The system’s trade arrangements were federated, with uniform, quote-ahead fees and access levels. No direct Hugglelans presence here, no Korval trade arrangements, and a couple of offer-only channels that cycled at high speed so incoming ships could get a fair taste of available portside commerce.

  “This is like the usual routes with Primadonna,” Theo told Clarence when he’d remarked on her looking much more relaxed than on their inbound to Frenzel. “Nothing about that place synced with me, I guess. I’d got so used to routine with Rig—and nothing at Frenzel was what I expected.”

  “Understood—and, remember, that routine’s your strong point. I’ve been out of the chair such a while, hardly anything’s routine, excepting the flight.”

  * * *

  It was easier to grab a short-term claim tube at the hundred-hour dock on Tradedesk than to arrange for landing at either Chustling or Vincza.

  With Vincza, the problem was the half-Standard-long worldwide rainy season the planet was now enjoying—Theo wasn’t used to seeing warnings of seasonal flooding and mandatory evacuation drills in port infopackets. Chustling, on the other hand, allowed only those ships with a firm contact or a firm contract to dock at the Port Authority Yard. All others were welcome to find a berth at any of the several privately owned yards, which, in Theo’s opinion—and in Bechimo’s—sounded just a little too risky, especially given the presence of the nice, busy station where, coincidentally, the offices of the third name Shan had given her were located.

  Once the berth was set up with Tradedesk Control, they shared the most recent information, shooting the last eighteen hours of almost everything they had from Frenzel’s news, business, and entertainment channels to their account box to see if anyone was biting—it might well be they had something worth a few bits to someone, and Frenzel didn’t have that many ships coming this way. The Cresthaller info went up into the “just in” box, and though there wasn’t much, it was about as fresh as could be. At Clarence’s suggestion, they cut the last half-day’s info from the feed—parsed carefully that might give somebody with “a nose for mischief” as he put it, an idea of Bechimo’s cut-it-close Jump capability.

  While they were sending info, info was coming in—station regs, of course; catalogs; the usual advertisements; trade market hours, and those regs.

  Mail.

  Personal mail.

  Theo stared at her private inbox with a feeling of disbelief. She’d known there was a Guild office on Tradedesk; that was right in the Quick Guide. What she hadn’t known was how that simple fact would make her feel. Space! After so many worlds where there wasn’t Guild, or that the Guild Quick Guide actively warned her away from—including Surebleak—she felt like she’d found civilization.

  And . . . a letter.

  She glanced at the address quickly. Kamele Waitley. Only one, and sent rationally to her forwarding service. Mother had been studying.

  Naturally.

  Theo shook her head.

  “Trouble?” Clarence asked.

  She looked up.

  “Letter from my mother,” she said, voice wry.

  Clarence laughed.

  “Well now,” he said comfortably. “That could go either way, that could.”

  — • —

  They had, after discussion, sent to the Scouts, and the Scouts had sent a team to Moonstruck, the last known location of packet ship Ride the Luck.

  A member of that team now awaited the delm in the map room, according to Mr. pel’Kana, the butler. And in broad daylight, too, for a wonder.

  “Korval.”

  The Scout’s bow was profound; the Scout herself grey of hair and hard of face.

  “Scout Specialist Olwen sel’Iprith, bearing preliminary findings from the investigation on Moonstruck.”

  “Scout Specialist.” Val Con inclined his head, looking as calm and collected as you please, which just went to show the value and purpose of manners, and training in the forms.

  “Please,” Miri said, doing her bit for peace and calmness, “may we offer tea or other refreshment?”

  “I beg not, Lady. My report is not lengthy, and I have other errands to accomplish before I may lift.”

  “You leave again so quickly?” Val Con murmured.

  “Tonight, if I can be cleared to fly. Much depends on what is decided at headquarters.”

  “Certainly. Let us do what we may to speed you on your way.”

  “Our team found on Moonstruck the remains of a starship, quite recently destroyed,” she said, downright brusque. “We believe this to be the remains of Ride the Luck.”

  Miri’s stomach went into freefall. Her fault, her decision.

  “A forensic scan of the wreckage produced no evidence to support the supposition that the pilot was aboard at the time of his ship’s demise.”

  She felt Val Con take her hand, his fingers weaving with hers. Felt the aftermath of his own pain—

  “We have also identified recent landing sites of three other vessels. Several on-site cameras and security devices have been . . . terminally disabled. Others are intact, but no longer operational. An attempt to recover such information as possible from those units is ongoing. We are also in pursuit of whatever records may exist in the memories of the various security devices belonging to the resorts and orbiting camps.”

  “The cavern in which the device was housed,” said Olwen sel’Iprith, and closed her eyes. She to
ok a breath, another, and a third. Miri guessed she had just accessed the mental exercise known as the Rainbow, which was designed to relax and steady the practitioner.

  She opened her eyes.

  “So. My team did also inspect the cavern. We found that the device had, indeed, been rendered nonfunctional. We have requested another specialist team to explore what remains in greater detail. The rest . . .” She swallowed.

  “There had been, very recently, an extremely violent confrontation in the cavern. Forensic scans were able to positively identify the DNA signatures of four individuals, including Ride the Luck’s pilot.”

  “He’s dead,” Miri heard the words, and only then realized that it had been her voice that had uttered them.

  Scout Specialist sel’Iprith gave her a long look.

  “Of that, we stand in some doubt.”

  “Because he is Korval?” asked Val Con, politely.

  “That is a factor,” she admitted. “Also, because someone had . . . tidied up, though not well. This gives us to think that haste was imperative. It does not seem possible that a survivor could have been unwounded. Also, it is not unreasonable that such a survivor may have anticipated the arrival of more combatants. From this, several scenarios suggest themselves.

  “One: Daav disabled those who came against him, captured their ship, and lifted. Alternatively, his backup may have pulled him out, performed some hasty housekeeping in order to confound a cursory inspection by any who came after, and lifted.”

  “Or,” Val Con said, “he may have been captured by one or more of his opponents and is now in their power.”

  That scared him. Miri gripped his hand, none too sure of her feet, or her stomach. Daav yos’Phelium, canny, subtle pilot that he was, former delm of Korval, twisted and reshaped by the Department of the Interior . . . It made her—it made him—

  “That is not impossible,” admitted the Scout, “though it seems to me, unlikely.”

  “Forgive me, but I feel it to be the most likely,” Val Con murmured, and how he could sound so calm, with all that roaring around in his head—what it felt like, the Department’s training—and his father, gods! And his mother, a ghost inside her lifemate’s head. If they somehow found out that they had Aelliana Caylon in their hands . . .