Kate Elliott - Jaran

"To talk?" She turned to rest a hand on his sleeve. She was older, a handsome woman dressed in long skirts and belled trousers washed gray by the night. "Talk is not precisely what I had in mind."

He shifted so that his arm brushed hers, but still he did not look at her. "You flatter me." She laughed, low and throaty, and lifted a hand to touch his face.

His diffidence astonished Tess and she felt suddenly like a voyeur, spying on a scene not meant for her eyes and ears. She shimmied backward into the tent, covered her ears with her hands, and curled up in her blankets. Eventually, she even went to sleep.

Light shimmered through the crystal panes that roofed and walled the Tai-en's reception hall. Rainbows painted the air in delicate patterns, shifting as the sun peaked and began its slow fall toward evening.

Marco sat on a living bench, grown from polished ralewood, growing still, shaded by vines. He watched as Charles Soerensen moved through the crowd. Worked the crowd, really; Marco had always liked that use of the word. Each new cluster of Chapalii bowed to the same precise degree at Charles's presence. The humans shook his hand, except for the Ophiuchi-Sei, who met him with a palm set against his palm, their traditional greeting. A handful of individuals from alien species under Chapalii rule also graced the reception, but Charles was always armed with interpreters of some kind, and he had the innate ability to never insult anyone unknowingly. Marco studied the crowd, measuring its tone, measuring individuals and family affiliations among the mass of Chapalii honored enough to receive this invitation, enjoying the consternation in the Chapalii ranks at the carousing of a score of human miners in from the edge of the system on holiday, marveling for the hundredth time over how the Chapalii architect responsible for this chamber had managed to coordinate the intricate pattern of the mosaic floor with the shifting rainbows decorating the loft of air above.

At the far end of the hall, under the twin barrel vaults that led out into the stone garden, Suzanne appeared.

Marco did not jump to his feet. He never did anything hastily or blindly, except for that one time in the frozen wastelands far to the south of Jeds, when he had run for his life with a spear through his shoulder, an arrow through his neck, and his dead guide left behind in a spreading pool of blood.

Suzanne did not move from the entrance. She merely stood to one side, shadowed by a pillar, and waited. After a few minutes, Marco rose and strolled aimlessly through the crowd, making his spiral way toward Charles. When he at last touched the sleeve of Charles's shirt, he noted that Suzanne had vanished from the hall. Charles shook the hand of a ship's master, exchanged a few easy words with her mate, and followed Marco out through the narrow side corridor that led to the efficiency and thence through a nondescript door to a hall that circled back and led out onto a secluded corner of the stone garden.

Suzanne waited there, standing under the shade of a granite arch cut into a lacework of stone above. A Chapalii waited with her. Seeing Charles, he bowed to the precise degree.

"Charles," said Suzanne, "this is Hon Echido Keinaba. He has come to Odys on behalf of his family to negotiate shipping and mineral rights. I hope you will be able to find time to discuss this matter in detail with him tomorrow." Then she repeated her speech in halting formal Chapalii, for Keinaba.

Charles nodded.

Keinaba bowed, his skin flushed red with satisfaction.

"Tai Charles," he said, speaking slowly, more as if he were choosing his words carefully than making sure the duke could understand him, ' 'I am overwhelmed by your generosity to me and to Keinaba in this matter. I was most gratified to meet and converse with your esteemed heir the Tai-endi Terese on the shuttle from Earth up to the Oshaki, and I can only hope that her influence has helped bring your favor onto our family." He bowed again, hands in that arrangement known as Merchant's Bounty.

Charles did not move or show any emotion on his face. He simply nodded again.

"Perhaps, Hon Echido," said Suzanne, "you would like to see the reception hall."

"It is my fervent desire," replied Echido. He bowed again and retreated.

"Where the hell did he come from?" asked Charles. "When did you get back?"

"One hour past, on the same ship as Echido. I rather like him, as much as I like any of them. Charles, Tess has vanished."

"Explain."

"The reason I came back in person instead of sending a bullet is that it only took me one day to establish without any doubt in my own mind that Tess finished her thesis, left Prague, and boarded the Oshaki with the intent to come to Odys. I have a holo interview with her friend Sojourner, with a security police officer from Nairobi Port, with a Port Authority steward, and a confirmed retinal print from the boarding access tunnel on Lagrange Wheel."

"And?"

Suzanne shrugged. She slipped her hand into an inner pocket on her tunic and handed a thick, palm-sized disk to Charles. "My feeling? Sojourner had the distinct impression Tess didn't want to come to Odys, but that she was running from an unhappy love affair.''

"Lord," said Marco.

"Don't kid yourself, Burckhardt. She evidently thought the boy was in love with her, but he was in love with her position and what she was and dumped her when he found out about the inheritance laws."

"Do you mean to say," Charles asked quietly, "that Tess was planning on getting married?''

"Looks like it."

Charles's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "She didn't tell me. And then?"

"No other ports of call, according to Echido, except Rhui and Odys. I picked him up on Earth. He did not in fact go back to Chapal, despite what that message said. He debarked from the Oshaki at Hydri and went back to Earth to get a ship back here. But he was very clear that he had met Tess. He said they talked about Rhui and the interdiction and Rhui's rich resources."

Charles considered the pattern of subtly shaded stones set in linked chevrons between twisting statues carved from black rock. "Suzanne, you will follow the trail of the Oshaki, as far as Chapal, if need be. Marco, to Jeds."

Suzanne nodded. "I've already made arrangements for the Lumiere to run a shipment of musical instruments to Paladia Major. We can leave in two hours."

Charles held out the disk. "This is a full report?"

"Of course."

"Then go." Suzanne said nothing more, but simply left, walking briskly on the path. Pebbles whispered under her shoes.

Marco coughed into his fist. "Charles, what if she doesn't want to be found? What if she needs some time alone, to be away from you, from-from everything? You ride her pretty damned hard."

"She would have sent me a message." Charles turned the disk in his hand over, and over again. "In any case, she and I haven't the luxury of time away. It's hard, but that's where it stands. Tess must be found. Do you really suppose that I trust the Chapalii in a matter like this? The captain of the Oshaki lied to me. He knew she was on his ship. Even if he colluded with her, if her intent was to hide on Rhui, still… still… she's leverage over me, and they know it."

"They made you a duke."

"And we still don't understand how their damned alien minds work. Start in Jeds, Marco. You or Suzanne will find her."

Marco watched Soerensen walk away, back to his duties at the reception which he would perform without the slightest visible sign that he had just discovered that his only sibling, his heir, had disappeared. Charles was about as yielding as the stone in this garden. Sun dappled the path where it wound underneath the granite arch, cut by the lacy filigree into twisting and subtly chaotic patterns that blended with the shapes of the pebbles. Perhaps the stone was more flexible. If Tess was missing by some machination of the Chapalii, there would be hell to pay, although Marco could not for the moment imagine what Charles could actually do about it. Chapalii did not harm their superiors, and very few Chapalii outranked Tess. She would be in no physical danger, at least, however small a consolation that was. And if Tess had run, and was hiding, and he found her and brought her back where she did not want to be: well, that might be worse.