Jo Clayton: Crystal Heat

She rested for the remainder of the day, playing her. songs over and over in the small area of brain available to her, letting the poisons of fatigue wash away.

Shadith reread the note, then pecked away at the sensor board, transferring the message onto a flake and routing it into a drone.

After a pause during which she recollected her strength, she called for a status report.

She would have closed her eyes, but she couldn’t. She might have held her breath, her hands might have been shaking. This didn’t happen. She gathered her forces, sent the release signal. The words on the screen vanished and two more appeared.

The musical bong that announced emergence from the insplit came as she was surfacing from a blackout.

She lay on the cot and squeezed enough slow thoughts out of her stiffened brain to wonder if the program was going to keep her there until the ship. touched down. Usually the body rose immediately, tended itself, ate, then moved to the pilot’s chair where it sat staring at a mostly empty screen.

She lay and fretted.

This was one more chain Digby was wrapping around her.

Time passed.

The body rose. Went to the fresher, took care of its wastes, washed itself. It came out, changed to clean clothing, then it stretched out on the cot once again, lay with its hands crossed on its breasts, eyes fixed on the dull metal of the ceiling.

Helpless prisoner in her own head, Shadith would have wept in frustration if she could.

Some hours later, the vibrations in the walls changed. The sound changed…

And yet later the sounds, the vibrations stilled. The ship was on the ground.

20. Turned Loose

A timid scratching on the door.

Lylunda looked up from the remote and saw Lilai hesitating in the opening. “Come on in.” She blanked the screen and smiled at the girl. wasn’t doing anything important, just looking over my finances.”

“Oh. Maybe I should come back. Mum gets scratchity when she’s working numbers.”

“All depends on what the numbers say. Besides, till I get back on the job, I can’t really do any planning. Guessing without hard data is good for passing time and not much more.”

Lilai sidled in and perched on the edge of a chair. “That’s sorta what I came to tell you When you’ll get back, I mean. Mum said I could. Mum said. Shadow called and said she’d made the report to Digby and as soon as the Kliu check it out, you can go whenever you want.” She sighed, then stared down at her hands, the fingers of one scratching the palm of the other. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered, so softly Lylunda had almost to guess at the words.

For the first time Lylunda realized how lonely the child was and saw some value in the messy, often dangerous life she’d led while she was growing up. Lonely wasn’t something you suffered in the streets of the Izar. This place was lovely, there was every comfort here you could possibly want-everything except other people. She was bored after a month, of it. Lilai had been here all her young life. “You have Vassil and the horses,” she said.

“But I can’t talk to him about anything but horses. And Mum, well, she’s my mother. And she’s…” Lilai sighed again. “You know. She loves me and I love her and we do lots of stuff and she’s a great Mom. But it’s not like just… I dunno.”

Aleytys had been friendly, but she wasn’t the type to sit around chatting with strangers and besides, she was distracted; it hadn’t been to hard to pick up the growing strain between her and the kid’s father. And on top of all that, it was rather hard to get chummy with a legend in the flesh. Lilai must feel that too. I wonder if she wishes sometimes that she had an ordinary mother. Too smart for her own good. Eight years old going on fifty. Sort of like Bug. Everything hurts when you’re like that. Jaink’s nethermost hell, what do I say? I don’t know anything about kids. And I swear I’m never going to have any. “You’re lucky to have a mom, Lil. Remember, I told you how mine died when I was fifteen?”

“But you got to go learn to be a pilot and you have your own ship and you can go wherever you want now.”

“So what do you think you want to do?”

“Mum says she’ll get me a place on University. I think I’m going to study animals. Well, I already am. Swarda and Shadow bring me books and things when they come to visit and Aunt. Harskari always has something new in her ship garden and she tells me about how it lives and stuff. Shadow has friends who hunt for animals. I thought may I could go work for them after I finish school.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“And Mum says when I make twelve we’ll do my first run in the Wildlands and I’ll see the silvercoats live not just on flakes and we’ll gather the first stones for my cairn. And when I’m eighteen, I’ll go by myself and put a stone on the cairn. And they can’t call me brat any more or say I’m hanging on Mum’s belt to pull myself along.”

Lylunda repressed a shiver. Her childhood kept looking better the more she heard about Wolff. This child was anticipating with pleasure being dumped in the colckst, most barren part of this unfriendly world with just what she could carry ’on her back and no weapons but a knife and a bow. She was supposed to survive out there for at least a week-and not just survive, but cover Jaink knew how many kilometers, make her mark on some pile of rocks and come back out by foot power and gritted teeth.

“Luna, there’s a tutorial on a little while about the Wildlands. You want to come watch it with me?”

“Sure. Why not. While the show’s running, you can tell me all about the silvercoats.”

Grey and Aleytys spent the next day in a bitter quarrel, arguing in undertones, no shouting, all control. They filled the house with a tension that twanged at Lylunda’s nerves and had Lilai shivering like a frightened deer.

Fiddling with the remote screen, trying to pretend she was working, Lylunda stayed in her room until the little ghost that wore Lilai’s shape wandered past the door for the tenth time. With an impatient siss, she wiped the figures from the screen, shut down the remote and marched into the hall. “Come on.”

She didn’t wait to see if the child was following her, just strode along the hall to the drop tube.

The barn was warm, smelled of horse and hay. Lylunda threw a blanket over a bale to keep the stubs away from her flesh, then settled herself on it and waited for Lilai to slip in. She wrinkled her nose, remembering her first day here when the girl grinned at her and told her they had to be friends, their names were almost twins, then hauled her off to see her horses. Looks like a parent doesn’t have to be a stone bort like my own daddy dear to mess up a kid’s life. At least he’s out of my life for good. Poor little Lilai has got another ten years of this. At least. Well, it’s not my business. I’m outta here soon as it’s safe.

Lilai came hesitantly through the partly open door. She stopped just inside and stood slouched, staring at the planks of the floor with the wisps of grass hay strewn across the wood. Her mouth trembled.

“It’s tough, kid. I know. Come over here and sit down. You don’t have to say anything.”

Lilai nestled close to her. She was cold and shaking, but she didn’t cry, even when Lylunda slipped an arm about her shoulders and held her close.