Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe. Collaterial Adventures

“Feel the nap. Is there a stiff spot which may be a stain invisible to the eye? Pull on the loops—do they hold or come loose? Smell the carpet—is it musty? Sour? All of these details are important.”

She sent him one startled glance out of vivid purple eyes before bending forward, her right hand stroking and seeking. She bent her face closer—and sneezed.

“Dusty,” she said.

He inclined his head.

She continued her inspection with that solemness which was characteristic of her, and at last sat back on her heels and looked at him across the rug.

“The threads are good, the stitches are firm. There is no staining visible to eye or to hand. The carpet is dusty, but fresh.”

“Very good,” he said, and plied the stylus once more.

When the yellow tag appeared, he handed it across to her.

“Use the stitch gun to staple the tag to the near corner.”

He helped her wrestle the wrapper on it, and used his chin to point at the waiting carpets.

“Please choose our next subject and unroll it while I put this in its proper place.”

She rose, a thing of pure, careless grace, and moved lithely to the pile. Pat Rin gritted his teeth and carried the little rug across to the bin.

Niki was sitting tall on the shelf. She blinked lazy green eyes at him as he stroked her breast.

Somewhat soothed, Pat Rin turned back to the work area, expecting to find the next specimen unrolled and awaiting inspection.

Indeed, a rug had been liberated from the pile, and he felt a momentary pang—she had chosen the one he had wanted to study himself. It displayed a promising underside, thick with knots. He sighed, then wondered about the delay.

Knife at her knee, Nova crouched over the roll, head bent above the single corner she had curled into the light. Her shoulders were rounded in an attitude of misery—or defiance.

“Unroll it!” he said, perhaps a little sharply, but Nova only knelt there.

Gods, what ailed the child? Pat Rin thought, irritably, and moved forward.

“Don’t…” Nova moaned, “I know this rug!”

But that was nothing more than nonsense. Likely the thing had been away rolled in a dusty attic for a dozen dozen Standards….

He moved down the cylinder, pulling the ribbon ties rapidly.

“Nova, help me roll this out.”

She crouched lower, fingers gripping her corner…

Pat Rin delivered a smart kick and the thing unrolled with alacrity, as if the carpet had been yearning for its freedom.

Beside him, cowering now, head even closer to the floor and the corner of carpet she clung to, Nova gasped.

He looked down at the top of her bright head, frowning. Nothing he knew of Nova encouraged him to believe that she was a malingerer. Nor was it possible to imagine Cousin Er Thom or his lady wife, Cousin Anne, tolerating this sort of missish behavior for anything longer than a heartbeat.

“Are you ill?” he asked. “Cousin?”

She shuddered, and raised her head as if it were a very great weight.

“No,” she said on a rising note, as though she questioned her answer even as she gave it. “I… beg your pardon, cousin. A passing—a passing stupidity.” She rose, slowly and with a quarter of her previous grace. “Pray… do not regard it.”

He considered her. Carpets woven of certain esoteric materials did sometimes collect ill humors in storage. It was doubtful that this rug, which he had already tentatively classified as a Tantara of some considerable age, woven with vegetable dyed zeesa-wool thread that wore like ship-steel, had collected anything more than a little must, if that.

He glanced from her pale face to the rug. Yes—certainly it was an older Tantara, a geometric in the ivory-and-deep-green combination which had been retired for a dozen-dozen Standards, and in an absolutely enviable state of preservation, saving a stain on a wide section of the ivory-colored fringe.

Bending, he ran his hand over tine nap near the stain—stiff fibers grazed his palm. Whatever the substance was, it had gotten into the rug, too, which meant that there would be more to repairing the damage than simply replacing the fringe. It was odd that the carpet had been rolled away without being cleaned—and unfortunate, too. Most stains could be eradicated, if treated when fresh. A stain which had set for dozens of years, perhaps—it might be impossible to entirely remove the mar.

“We will need the kit for this,” he said briskly, straightening. “I’ll fetch it while you do a preliminary inspection.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and he sent another frown into her pale face.

“Nova,” he said, touching her hand. “Are you well?”

“Yes,” she whispered again, and turned away to find the clipboard.

Irritated, he strode off to the supplies closet.

The diagnostic kit was hanging in its place on the peg-board wall. Despite this, Pat Rin did not immediately have it down and hurry back to the work area. The stained rug had languished for years without care. A few heartbeats more would do it no harm.

Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes and took stock. The headache was the merest feeling of tightness behind his eyes, his stomach was empty, but unconcerned. In all, he had managed to come out of last evening’s adventures in fairly good order. His present irritability was not, he knew, the result of overindulgence, but rather the presence of one of his pilot kin, innocent herself of any wrong-doing—and a poignant reminder of all that he was not. Nor ever would be.

“Be gentle with the child,” he said to himself. “Did Luken show temper with you, thrust upon him unwarned and very likely unwanted?”

But, there. Luken was a gentle soul, and never showed temper, nor ever raised his voice, no matter how far he was provoked. He had other means of exacting Balance.

Pat Rin took another deep breath—and another. Opening his eyes, he could not say that he felt perfectly calm—but it would suffice. He hoped.

One more inhalation, for the luck. He had the kit off the peg and headed back to the workroom, and his assistant, and was brought up short on the threshold.

Nova stood in the center of the rug, shoulders and chin thrust forward in a distinctly truculent attitude, surveying the pattern.

“It is a beautiful rug, indeed,” she said nastily, as if speaking to someone who stood next to her rather than one on the other side of the room.

“Indeed, show off the pattern. Tell us that it is an antique Quidian Tantara, unblemished, heirloom of a clan fallen on hard times, a clan of rug dealers who have kept this treasure until the last, until your wonderful trading skills brought its true glory to us! And how like you to bring it here as subterfuge, hiding the truth of it, magnifying yourself to the detriment of others, and to the Clan. Almost, you got away with it….”

What was this? Was she speaking to him, after all? Had she discovered a pedigree card tucked into the end of the rug? In fact, from his view now, it might well be a Quidian, the rarest of…

She turned and stared directly at him.

“How many times more will you fail?” she shouted.

Pat Rin froze, caught between astonishment and outrage. How dare—

“One failure should certainly have been enough,” he said, struggling to keep his tone merely courteous and his face smooth. “That there are more can be laid to your father’s account.”

“Kin will suffer for your lapses!” Nova snarled, moving forward one slow, threatening step.

“Yes, very likely!” he snapped, all out of patience. “But never fear, cousin . The clan will not suffer because of me. I will make my own way.”

“You fail and fail again, always blaming others,” ranted the girl on the rug, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You will die dishonored and your kin will curse your name!”