Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

It was a fair question, and one that a new pilot might with honor ask of a port-wise comrade. The pity being that he had no answer nearly so fair to offer her in return. Scout instincts, pilot instincts—things learned through bone and blood, recalled by the deep mind, acted upon, and never questioned . . . How did one explain, without seeming to be perfectly demented? Worse, how did one teach, except as one had been taught—by trial and error, and the occasional laceration or broken bone?

Still, he told himself, rallyingly, there must have been a reason, mustn't there have, Daav? Only take a moment to reflect, and no doubt it will come to you.

He cast his mind back to the main room: the dance floor, the charmingly attired wait staff, the tables made private by the wafting smoke. Had there been a potential for danger, an . . . oddity, damn Clarence and his ghosts! The tension in a shoulder; the attitude of a head? Some small thing set slightly out of place? An object that ought to have been there, noticed only by its absence?

He sighed.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “Forgive me, Aelliana.”

She looked up into his face, her eyes deeply green in the sulfurous light.

“Forgive you? For heeding your training, which has kept you safe on dozens of ports, and in far stranger places? I can scarcely find that a fault, van'chela, nor any cause for forgiveness. Had your training been less thorough, or yourself less advertent, I might never have met you, nor known what it was I lived in lack of.”

If, indeed, her brother had allowed her to live so long. Horror shivered through him; it had been so near a thing, their meeting so much a matter of chance . . .

“Daav? Is there something amiss?”

“Nothing amiss,” he said, forcibly shaking off the chill, and producing a smile to soothe her. “I was merely thinking that the luck moves along strange pathways.”

“So it does,” she agreed, and glanced about them once again. “If there is nothing here for us, do you think that we might leave?”

“In fact, I do!” He preceded her down the ramp, in case the fluttering litter should suddenly turn feral, and nodded to the left as she joined him on the alley's floor.

“I propose that we find us a convivial place for a glass and a bit of supper, now that we're at leisure.”

Aelliana tipped her head, her stance wistful. “I had hoped to see more of the port.”

Of course she would, he chided himself; this was her first new port—her first world that was not the homeworld! Who would not wish to walk such streets and marvel that she had come so far?

“There's no requirement that we find supper at the first shop displaying a glass,” he pointed out, and was rewarded by her smile.

“There isn't, is there?” she said. “We are free to meet our own fancy. Let us, if you will humor me, walk.” She held out her hand, inviting, and he stepped forward to take it in his own.

“By all means, let us walk and observe the port! It has been an age since I've been at leisure to tour.”

* * *

They bought bowls of stew from a cart outside of a greens market, and fresh-squeezed juice from a stall inside. Leaning on the railing at the observation window, they ate while watching pallets of vegetables being offloaded from rail cars, to ride the conveyors into the vendor area below.

After, they went back out onto the port and walked, taking turns choosing their direction. At some point in their meanderings the snow began again, riding a freshening breeze. Aelliana shivered and turned up the collar of her jacket, curling her hands into warm pockets.

They found a bakery open at the edge of what might have been a day-side business district, ate lemon squares and drank hot tea at a tiny round table while in the back the baker prepared the next day's dough.

Warmed by tea and sugar, they went on the prowl again, pausing by a map board so that she could discover the locations of such landmarks as the Portmaster's Office, the Pilots Guild, Healer Hall, and Port Security. There were pointers to various ferries: the Ocean Line, the Mountain Line, the City Line—and the shuttle to the Pleasure Quarters.

“The Pleasure Quarters?” she murmured. “What do you suppose that is?”

“I am without information. Shall we find if the shuttle is running and explore?”

Her laugh was swallowed by a yawn.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “For tonight, van'chela, I think it might be time to seek our ship, and our bed.”

“Well enough,” Daav answered. “It's always good to have a plan for the morrow.” He considered the map briefly, and raised a hand to trace out a route.

“If we go north, past Avontai Port 'change, we'll cut the corner of the Entertainment District, and so come back to the public yard.” He glanced down at her. “Or shall we find a cab?”

“I think I can walk so far—unless you're chilled?”

“My legs are long, and walking keeps the chill away.”

“Then we are in accord. Lead on, sir.”

He smiled and led them back across the square.

“I remember when you insisted on sir,” he said.

Aelliana chuckled. “And I remember when you insisted on 'Daav'—or 'pilot,' if I must.” She slipped her hand into his pocket and curled her fingers 'round his. “Each as stubborn as the other—even then. I wonder . . . ” She paused.

“Wonder?”

“The boy to whom we delivered the dulciharp. I wonder how he will go on, in his changed life. If he will be happy, or become a master, or if his delm will bid him stay . . . ”

“Ah, but it is the fate of couriers never to know the end of the tale. We fly in, deliver our package, take up our cargo—and fly out. We are agents of change only insofar as we have adhered to the terms of our contract. Those things that we set in motion go on to their fruition, without our knowledge and beyond our aid.”

They crossed a boulevard that must, Aelliana thought, be very busy by day, and turned down a street sparsely illuminated by the spill of night lights from sleepy shop windows. The snow had stopped again, leaving glittering arabesques around darkened signs, icy scallops at the edges of windows.

“Asleep, Pilot?” Daav murmured, when they had traversed the block in companionable silence.

“Merely content. It's very quiet, isn't—”

“No!” The cry shattered the crystalline quiet, like a knife thrown through glass. “No, give it back!”

She felt a jolt of adrenaline, a shock of necessity, and she was running, hot on Daav's heels, toward the scream, which was, one small, rational part of her mind pointed out, surely unsafe. They ought to be running away, to find a call box, or a proctor—

“Don't let it get loose!” That was another voice, angry and perhaps a little afraid.

She rounded the corner, swinging out so that she not slam into Daav, who had frozen into near invisibility, watching.

Halfway down the thin alley, a pilot was on his knees in a drift of snow, arms raised, hands reaching, every line etched with desperation. Before him were ranged five port toughs, their ranks opening to receive a sixth, carrying a bag that had surely been reft from the downed pilot.

“Give it back!” If words could bleed, these did. “I have money . . . ” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a pouch, his hand shaking so that the coins jangled clearly.

“Take it—the jacket, my boots—take what you like, but return—”

A rock smashed into the wall just beyond the pilot's shoulder. He cowered, throwing his hands up, a small, broken sound escaping from his throat.

“Please . . . ”

“Please . . . ” One of the six sobbed, mockingly. “We saw what you have in this bag and we know how to deal with it!”

“No! Give it back! I'll take it offworld!”