Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

The door opened.

“My thanks,” Aelliana said.

Mr. dea'Gauss answered with a grave, “My pleasure.”

Daav turned in time to see the accountant's shadow fade away from the door, as Aelliana stepped within.

His heart rose to see her, walking assured and firm—sharp and telling contrast to the tentative, near-invisible woman who had slunk into Binjali's so short a time ago, and whispered the name of her ship.

“Aelliana,” he said, smiling. “Bored to distraction already?”

“Indeed, no,” she said, pausing at the far side of the desk. “Only bedeviled by my own stupidity and wondering if I might ask you, yet again, to help me!”

“Of course I will help in any way I can. What has happened?”

She hesitated, and it seemed to him that the glance she leveled at him was more sightful than previously, as if she saw past face and eyes and someway into his heart.

“Perhaps I should not plague you, just now,” she said slowly, and stepped 'round the desk, her hand darting out to grasp his.

He stiffened, then relaxed as cool fingers wove between his.

“Aelliana,” he said softly, “what do you see?”

“See? Nothing save a weary face and some sadness about your eyes,” she answered, her own face troubled. “However, I feel—Van'chela, what a stew!”

“Your pardon,” he said, stiffly. “I fear I'm all at dozens and daggers.” He slipped his hand away from hers and tucked it into his pocket.

“Daav—tell me true. Is your clan in peril?”

“It is not.”

She tipped her head, as if she considered whether that bald statement might yet harbor some ambiguity.

“Your sister—”

“My sister,” he interrupted, his voice sharper than he had intended, “sees a hundred-year scandal—”

Aelliana's eyes widened, and he made haste to finish.

“ . . . in a teacup misaligned within a formal setting. You must not, as much as she does herself, take Kareen too seriously, Aelliana. In this instance, you may discount her fears entirely, as Mr. dea'Gauss has just shown me the outcome of today's negotiations.” He produced a smile for her earnestness and had the satisfaction of seeing her face lose some of its tension.

“Now,” he said, “you are troubled. What may I do to assist you?”

She sighed and walked to the open window, leaning one hand against the frame as she looked out into the early evening.

“I—as you know, I spoke with Clonak—it was the strangest thing, Daav, but I feel . . . I feel that assuring him of my safety failed to ease him, and that I left him more distraught than I had found him. He was . . . very subdued—not at all in his usual mode, and—the entire purpose of speaking with him was to give him heart's ease . . . ”

“Ah.” He stepped up to the window, too, and looked out over the riot of gladioli blooms. That Clonak's case was bad—he feared it. He had known that his friend had formed an attachment to Aelliana, as had all of the crew at Binjali's. If his heart was truly engaged—and it seemed now that it must be . . .

He took a breath. “Perhaps Clonak still needs some time,” he said carefully. “We were all of us—anxious for you, and recall it has only been a day since it seemed likely that you were . . . ” he paused, wondering if he should bring such things to a mind newly Healed.

“Brain-burned and unlikely to recover,” Aelliana said crisply, which seemed to answer that question.

“That—yes. Sometimes, it is relief which plunges us into terror, once we are certain that danger is beyond us. Certainly, Clonak has been of that persuasion. Scouts are taught to act first and panic later, when one is safe from the worst effects of stupidity.”

“I . . . see.” She was silent for a long time, her attention seemingly on the darkling garden.

He took a deep breath of flower-scented air, and sighed. She was right, he thought; he was weary, and trained as a Scout as much or more as Clonak had been.

“Daav?” she asked softly.

“Aelliana?”

“Do you know—what it was that the Healers did to me?”

Now, there was a question he had hoped not to hear for some days. And yet, she had asked it, and it was his to tell her.

“I know . . . what Master Kestra told me,” he admitted. “Which I will tell you, if you like, but I wonder, Aelliana . . . ”

She turned to look at him.

“Yes?”

“Would you care to go for a walk in the garden? It's far too fine an evening to languish indoors.”

Back | Next

Contents

Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

Chapter Ten

The Guild Halls of so-called “Healers”—interactive empaths—can be found in every Liaden city.

Healers are charged with tending ills such as depression, addiction and other psychological difficulties and they are undoubtedly skilled therapists, with a high rate of success to their credit.

Healers are credited with the ability to wipe a memory from all layers of a client's consciousness. They are said to be able to directly—utilizing psychic ability—influence another's behavior; however, this activity is specifically banned by Guild regulations.

—From “The Case Against Telepathy”

The garden smelled of greenleaf, damp soil, and a hundred other subtle perfumes. Walking beside Daav along the overgrown path, Aelliana's hand brushed against a tall lavender spike, releasing a burst of mint scent.

“To address what the Healers have . . . done to you, Aelliana, we must first allow you to know the state in which you were received into the Hall. The report I had from the pilots at Chonselta Hall was that you were raving, clearly assigning meaning to words which were . . . inappropriate to the case . . . ”

The taxi driver, and her own voice, quavering in and out of audibility, the words tumbling in a meaningless chatter of sound. “I remember,” she said, and that was true, though the memory was distant and without emotional charge, as if it had all happened a very long time ago.

"Ah. Then you will not find it surprising that two Master Healers were immediately called to your side—Kestra and Tom Sen. It was Master Kestra I spoke with today when I arrived at the Hall.

“Of the most recent trauma, you have been healed. There was, so Master Kestra tells me, some small bit of burn, which she pronounces insignificant. She is, by the way, all admiration for you and the solution you employed to preserve yourself.”

“Solution?” Aelliana frowned, trying to recapture that memory, but it eluded her, lost inside a sound like shouting and the image of a solar system entirely unknown to her.

“You had created yourself a piloting problem,” Daav said softly. “A model star system, the balancing of which kept your mind focused and the . . . more inimical effects of the Learning Module at bay.”

“Oh, but that's standard protocol,” she said. “The Learner will not disturb a brain at work.”

“Thus did you save yourself, when those of us who would have, could not.” There was something in that which reminded her too nearly of Clonak, but when she turned to look into his face, all she saw was weariness.

“The Healer who was with me when I woke, the first time today,” she said, the memory suddenly upon her. “I had asked her if I were brain-burned. She said she was trying to determine just that, and then—I fell asleep. How odd, that I hadn't recalled that until just now! When I woke again, I had no question but that I was perfectly well.”

“Healers are bright, and terrible, and wise,” Daav murmured, with the air of one quoting . . . poetry, perhaps.

“I've had so little experience of Healers—none, in fact.” She bit her lip and glanced at the side of his face, waiting for him to continue, but he merely strolled on, a man communing with his garden. The impulse to touch him was very strong. She curled her hands into fists, counted to twelve, and then asked another question.