Unknown: Sharon Lee And Steve Miller - Liaden Universe 10 - Fledgling-ARC

Across from her, Kamele had eaten a few ginger noodles, and given the soup a long, thoughtful look. Mostly, she was drinking coffee, her movements sharp and not quite steady. Theo thought again about wine, but didn't quite know how to ask if there was any in-house, let alone suggesting if it might be a good idea for Kamele to have some.

The other question hovering on the tip of her tongue... She did know that this wasn't the optimum time for asking questions, with Kamele trembling at the edge of a crash. But she had to know – she had to know why.

Her mother ate another few noodles, washed down with a large swallow of coffee. Theo took a hard breath.

"Kamele?"

Over-bright blue eyes focused on her face. "Yes, Theo?"

"I'd like to learn the reason why we've moved here." There, she thought, that sounds calm, and grown-up, and non-judgmental.

The bright gaze dropped. Kamele used her hashi to poke at the noodles in her bowl.

"We've moved here so I can do my work more efficiently," she said quietly.

Theo blinked, thinking of the high-end access available at Father's house.

"You can work from home," she blurted, "and a lot more comfortably, too! Kamele, your office at home is bigger than this whole apart – "

"Precisely." Her mother was looking at her again, cheeks flushed and mouth tight. "A true scholar must value her work above all else. Living in Professor Kiladi's house, I – we have grown... accustomed to certain luxuries that are not necessary for – and indeed may be inimical to – the process of orderly and analytical thought."

That, Theo thought, sounded like a rote response, and if it had been Kamele asking and Theo answering, the rote response would have only earned her a closer interrogation.

Theo took a breath.

"Kamele – "

"I am not done answering your question yet, Theo," her mother said coolly. "Or have you decided that you don't wish to learn, after all?"

Oops. Theo bent her head. "I framed the question," she said quietly, like the well-brought-up child of an academic from a long tradition of Waitley academics; "because I wished to learn."

There was silence while Kamele drank more coffee, then pushed the considerable remains of her meal to one side.

"Research, study, and teaching are only three-quarters of what a scholar must do in order to... become prominent in her field," she said slowly. "A scholar must have contacts, allies; colleagues who support her work and whose work she supports in return. These associations cannot be built, or strengthened, by living retired in the suburbs. I need to be here, at the intellectual heart of the planet, in order to make the contacts I need to... The contacts I will need to further my career."

Theo opened her mouth, and hastily raised her cup for a swallow of juice.

"I've gotten out of touch," Kamele said, slowly. "And it has cost me. Cost us all. We can recover, of course. With work. Hard work. Work that must be done from the Wall." She looked up, bright eyes fierce. "I am a scholar of Delgado. I must be resolute."

She might have seen Theo staring, because she smiled suddenly – a real smile, tired as it was. "So, we will take up the professorial lifestyle, as our mothers and grandmothers have done before us. It will be an adventure, won't it, Theo?"

Applying Father's definition of an adventure being a series of unlooked-for and uncomfortable events, Theo guessed that it would be.

She cleared her throat, suddenly wanting to be by herself to think, even in that nasty little den of a room. Pushing back from the table, she barely remembered to say, "Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Kamele."

"Of course," her mother said. "You're not a child anymore, Theo. It's time you began to ask these questions and to plan how you'll manage your own career." She waved an unsteady hand.

"I'll deal with the clean-up. Go and get your rest. Tomorrow's a school day."

Like she didn't know that, Theo thought, but she slid off the stool without any other comment than, "Good-night, Kamele."

"Good-night, daughter," her mother murmured, but she was looking down at the tabletop, her brows drawn together in a frown.

* * * *

"Who knew that two people could make such a noise," Jen Sar Kiladi murmured, "that the house is so silent in their absence?"

He put his palm against the door to Theo's room, and paused on the threshold as the lights came up.

"Thorough," he noted. "We can hope that she spent most of her angst in turning off her room, and has none left over for her mother."

She is, the voice that only he could hear commented, right to be upset. And she will ask questions.

"Agreed," he murmured, crossing the room to pick up a fallen book. "Only they might, might they not, be gentle questions?"

He sighed down at the book: Sam Tim's Ugly Day. An unfortunate translation, but a useful conceit that had delighted a much-younger Theo. Though she appeared, he thought, stretching to put the book up with its fellows, to have outgrown the conceit, yet she might still recall the lesson.

"An awkward time for a separation," he said, perhaps to himself; "with the child dancing on the edge."

Yet Kamele's reasons are sound, countered the voice inside his head. You, yourself, encouraged her to do what was needful.

"Oh, indeed! Every bit of it – and more." He shook his head at the bare room, and turned to retrace his steps.

"Does it seem to you, Aelliana," he asked as he stepped out into the hallway, "that I may have become – just a thought! – meddlesome?"

His answer was a peal of laughter.

* * * *

The 'fresher was at the end of the hall. Theo showered and returned to her room, closing the door and unfolding the bed. It didn't take up quite as much room as she had feared, which was a blessing in a space where centimeters mattered.

Having put the bed down, though, she didn't immediately retire. The glare off the floor and walls set her teeth on edge. She went over to the desk to check the ambiset. If she could get some pictures – or at least some color! – into the walls; put a mosaic into the floor, it would make the place seem more like home, cramped as it was.

Except – there was no ambiset to be found. Theo went out into the hall, but there was no ambiset there, either. She actually compressed the closet, thinking that she must have placed it in front of the control center – but the only thing behind was more featureless, white wall.

"I do not believe this," she said loudly, her voice sliding off the walls and tumbling into the glare. She ran her hands through her hair and stared around the tiny room, even casting a not-exactly-hopeful look at the ceiling.

No ambiset.

"And this is supposed to focus my mind?" Theo asked the air.

The air didn't bother to answer.

All right. She took a deep breath. At least she knew what to do to about the jitters. She needed some handwork, that was all. Her needles and thread were in the cube. She'd lay down a couple lines of lace. In fact, there was that idea she'd had about making a lace flower like the new ones Father had planted in their garden.

She knelt by the cube, unsnapped it and lifted the lid, looking down into a dark maw lined with numerous needle-sharp teeth.

"Hey!" She dropped the top, caught it before it hit the floor and laid it gently down. Inside the cube, Coyster yawned again.

Theo sat back on her heels and shook her head, feeling the grin pulling her mouth wide.

"You're going to get me in so much trouble," she said.

Coyster shook out a dainty white paw and began to wash his face.

Chapter Three