Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe

Full circle.

The board beeped; systems checked out clean, which was nothing more than she’d expected. She had a cold pad spoke for at the public yard; some meetings set up across the next couple days couple of independents on-port she still needed to get to regarding their views on TerraTrade’s proposed “small trade” policies. She’d write that report before she lifted, send it on to Lezly, in case....

In case.

Well.

She reached to the board, opened eyes and cars, began to tap in the code for the office at the public yard—and stopped, fingers frozen over the keypad.

In the top left corner of the board, away from everything else on the board, a yellow light glowed. Pinbeam message waiting, that was.

Most likely it was TerraTrade business, though she couldn’t immediately call to mind anything urgent enough to require a ‘beam. Still, it happened. That’s why emergencies were called emergencies.

She tapped the button, the message screen lit, sender ID scrolled—not a code she recognized, off-hand—and then the message.

Situation’s changed. Don’t come. K

The room was softly lit, his chair comfortable. For the moment, there were no restraints, other than those imposed by the presence of the woman across the table from him.

“Where is the High Judge, Mr. Zar?”

Her voice was courteous, even gentle, despite having asked this selfsame question at least six times in the last few hours.

“Evaluation tour, is what he told me,” he answered, letting some frustration show.

“An evaluation tour,” his interlocutor repeated, a note of polite disbelief entering her cool voice. “What sort of evaluation?”

“Of the other judges,” he said, and sighed hard, showing her his empty hands turned palm up on his knee. “He was going to visit them on the job, see how they were doing, talk to them. It’s a regular thing he does, every couple Standards.” That last at least was true.

“I see.” She nodded. He didn’t know her name—she hadn’t told him one, and she wasn’t somebody he knew. She had a high, smooth forehead, a short brush of pale hair and eyes hidden by dark glasses. One of Grom Trogar’s own—his sister, for all Kore knew or cared.

What mattered was that she could make his life very unhappy, not to say short, unless he could convince her he was behind on brains and info.

“It seems very odd to me,” she said now, conversationally, “that the High Judge would embark on such a tour without his pilot.”

They’d been over this ground, too.

“I’m a courier pilot,” he said, keeping a visible lid on most of his frustration; “not a big ship pilot. I fly courier work, small traders, that kind of thing. I stay here, in case I’m needed.”

She hesitated; he could almost taste her weighing the question of the rest of the household’s whereabouts against his own actions. Questions regarding his actions won out.

“You went to the courier shed this afternoon, is that correct?”

“Yes,” he said, a little snappish.

“Why?” Getting a little snappish, herself.

“I had a ‘beam from the judge, with instructions.”

“Instructions to lift?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you didn’t lift, Mr. Zar. I wonder why not.”

He shrugged, taking it careful here. “There was a guard on the door. It smelled wrong, so I went back to the house and sent a ‘beam to the judge.”

“I see. Which guard?”

He had no reason to protect the woman who’d been waiting for him. On the other hand, he had no reason to tell this woman the truth.

“Nobody I’d seen before.”

She shook her head, but let that line go, too. Time enough to ask the question again, later.

“Once more, Mr. Zar—where is the High Judge?”

“I told you—on evaluation tour.”

“Where is Natesa the Assassin?”

She was trying to throw him off. He gave an irritable shrug. “How the hell do I know? You think a courier assigns judges?”

“Hm. And the destination of the lift you did not make?”

Ile shook his head. “High Judge’s business, ma’am. I’m not to disclose that without his say. If you want to ‘beam him and get his OK...”

She laughed, very softly, and leaned back in her chair, sliding her dark glasses off and holding them lightly between the first and middle fingers of her right hand. Her eyes were large and pale gray, pupils shrinking to pinpoints in the dim light.

“You are good , Mr. Zar—my compliments. Unfortunately, I think you are not quite the dull fellow you play so well. We both know what happens next, I think? Unless there is something you wish to tell me?”

He waited, a beat, two...

She shook her head—regretfully, he thought, and extended a long hand to touch a button on her side of the table. The door behind her slid open, admitting two men, one carrying a case, the other a gun.

The woman rose, languidly, and motioned them forward. Kore felt his stomach tighten.

“Mr. Zar has decided that a dose of the drug is required to aid his memory, gentlemen. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Don’t come...

Midj stared at the message, then laughed—the first real laugh she had in—gods, a Standard.

“Don’t come,” she snorted, leaning back in the chair in the aftermath of her laugh. “Tell me another one, Kore.”

Shaking her head, she got up, went down the short hall to the galley and drew herself a cup of ‘toot, black and sweet.

Sipping, she walked back to the pilot’s chamber and stood behind the chair, looking down at the message on the screen.

“Now, of all the things he might’ve expected me to remember, wouldn’t that have been one of ‘e m?” Sheasked her ship. There was no answer except for the smooth hum of the air filtering system. But, then, what other answer was needed? Skeedaddle knew Kore as well as she did.

As well as she had .

Twenty-six years ago, Midj Rolanni had been taken up as trader by Amin Zar, working beside the least of Amin’s sons, one Korelan, who also had a head for trade. Their eighth or ninth stop, they were set to meet with one of the Zar cousins, who was a merchant on the port. Taking orbit, they collected their messages, including one from the cousin: “Don’t come.”

Amin Zar, he took a look at that message, nodded, broke open the weapons locker and issued arms. They went down on schedule, whereupon Amin and the elder sibs disembarked, leaving Kore, Midj, and young Berta in care of the ship.

Several hours later, they were back, Amin carrying the cousin, and a few of the sibs bloodied—and Midj still had bad dreams about the lift outta there.

After it all calmed down, she’d asked Kore why they’d gone in, when they’d clearly been warned away.

And he’d laughed and told her that “Don’t come,” was Zar family code for “help.”

She sipped some more ‘toot, took the half-empty cup over to the chute and dumped it in.

The time, she thought, going back and sitting in her chair, had come to face down some truths.

Truth Number One: She was a damn fool.

Truth Number Two: So was the Korelan Zar she had known, twenty Standards ago. Who but a damn fool left the woman, the ship and the life that he loved for a long shot at changing the galaxy?

And who but a damn fool let him go alone?

What came into play now was those same twenty Standards and what they might have done to the man at his core.

She noted that he never had said he’d changed his mind, in that first, brief call for her to come get him. The Kore she knew had never been a liar, preferring misdirection to outright falsehoods. It looked like he’d kept that tendency, and its familiarity had been the one thing that had convinced her the letter was genuine; St. Belamie giving her a second.