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

Theo glanced up, saw the pair, one wearing a leather jacket and the other in what looked like exercise clothes, mumbling at each other by hand as they reluctantly followed the crowd.

Their fingers were moving, but the signs weren't as clear or as broad as Cho's, leaving Theo more confused than enlightened.

Big plan better do us us need good long something double roll talky bright skin

Theo heard Cho make a sound perilously close to a snicker, and her fingers snapped out query?

Her tutor tipped her head as if she were congratulating Theo, her fingers forming out-duty shop talk... the rest squashed into meaninglessness as a palm came up and out, the signal that they should stop talking.

"Breakfast, mamzelle?" Their waiter this morning was a slender man with quiet eyes. Theo gave her order, out loud, of course, her fingers dancing the words as she spoke them.

"Allow me to counsel you to still your fingers when you speak," Cho said, after they were alone. "There may seem to be no harm in it; indeed, it may at first reinforce learning. However, it may quickly become a... difficult habit, and troublesome to break."

Theo guiltily curled her fingers into her palms. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Pah! I am a Scout. As such, I study survival in all its faces. Many find that a Scout's level of caution is far beyond what is useful in their own lives. Still, I would be less than a true teacher, did I not advise you thus."

Theo considered that. "We're taught advertency, at school," she said slowly. "Scholars need to be cautious, too."

"Indeed they do," Cho said seriously, pouring more tea into her cup.

Theo's cereal arrived. She smiled at the waiter, and thanked him, and turned her head to watch him bus the table beside them, balancing five cups and an unfinished tray of pastry with effortless grace.

"And so," said Cho suddenly, pulling Theo's eyes to her.

"What have we learned thus far, my student? Aside from the fact that one cannot read hand-talk while in full admiration of a view?"

Cho had her hands wrapped comfortably around her cup. Theo, her face warm, placed her fingers firmly against the table, and answered by voice.

"May I ask a question, first?"

Cho inclined her head.

"That man – our waiter – he's a pilot, isn't he?"

Cho lifted her head, her casual glance at the departing figure sharpening abruptly.

"Indeed," she said finally, "he may be. But what makes you ask?"

Theo shrugged, and sipped her tea, concerned that what she was about to say wasn't really very smart. Even so, there wasn't any way not to answer, now that she'd brought the question up.

"I think I see pilots," she said, meeting Captain Cho's eyes. It sounded as silly as she'd feared, but Cho only looked interested.

"Oh, indeed? Is there anyone else, besides myself?"

"Not that... now that he's gone." Theo leaned forward, fingers pressing the table hard. "But, I can look at people walking, or sometimes even standing, and tell if they're pilots. Now that I know what I'm seeing – Win Ton has it, you do, the man who left now... the pilots chasing the party... the pilots I play bowli ball with."

"Hah!" said Cho, taking a sip. "It," she repeated, and poured more tea into her cup.

Theo forced herself to pick up her spoon and address her breakfast. It was good; soy-oats with apple bits...

"It may well be that you are able to see, as you say, 'it,' " Cho said eventually. "Some have eyes that see more than others, after all."

Theo looked up. "But – I couldn't see it before!"

Cho inclined her head.

"I venture to predict that there are very few pilots among your classmates," she said. "And Delgado is not such a world as one sees pilots upon every walkway."

"I guess most of my teachers aren't pilots," Theo agreed, "and there's no piloting school on Delgado – " She looked up, hope sudden and hot – "is there?"

Cho shook her head, emphasizing the denial with a firm finger-spelt, not.

Theo sighed, and took a spoonful of her cereal. It tasted a little flat, suddenly. Maybe, she thought, it was getting cold. She pushed it aside and wrapped her hands around her tea cup.

"You asked what I had learned," she said slowly. "Besides the signs themselves, I've learned that hand-talk is... fun, but that you can't say everything in it."

"Do you think so, indeed? It is true that hand-talk developed for speed and clarity in... radical environments. A survival tool, you see? Still, pilots are inventive, and there are some who discuss philosophy in it, and those who use it to – "

"Philosophy?"

"Assuredly. In this ship's public library archives you may find, in translation or transliteration, a copy of The Dialogs of the Hospice. Two rescued pilots were for some years among a sect forbidding writing and speech. They thus held lengthy debates in hand-talk. After a second rescue, this to a civilized world, they transcribed their discussions, verbatim as it were. Do not think that hand-talk is so limited. And, of course, the more used among friends or associates, the more it becomes personal."

Theo thought about that.

"So everyone who hand-talks has their own accent?"

"Yes, that is a good way to see it. Terran pilots will have a different accent from Liaden pilots, and a Scout may bear yet a third accent. However, we may all speak together in an emergency, for the basic signs are held in common."

"And this," Theo asked, striving to reproduce the sign Cho had flashed in the aftermath of the chair rescue. "This means... ?"

"Ah!"

Cho repeated the sign. It came with overtones of extrafine best ready complete perfection, and a ghostly finger-snap at the very end.

"This is a phrase mostly in use among Scouts. To speak it, we would say binjali. Consider it to mean... well, it can mean ready or excellent or all things are fine and good."

"So, that's a Liaden word? Binjali?" Theo smiled, liking the feel of the word in her mouth. She tried again to wrap her fingers around it, and found that felt good, too.

"No," Cho said slowly. "Many Liadens will not know this word, which has only accidentally become a Scout word and thus slithered into hand-talk." She smiled. "I had said that pilots are inventive, did I not? Scouts are trebly so – and that may serve you as a warning!"

Theo laughed, her fingers moving, it seemed of their own will.

Captain, she signed, this spaceship voyage binjali!

Chapter Thirty-One

Vashtara

Breakfast All Year

"...back-up?" Aelliana inquired. Credit where credit was earned, her tone was no more acid than was necessary to carry the point.

"Suggestions?" he countered, slouching into his chair and closing his eyes. "Who shall we risk? Ella, charged with guarding Kamele's back? The Dean of Oriel? The Bursar?"

Monit Appletorn, his lifemate stated.

He opened his eyes, staring startled at the ceiling.

"What an... interesting... suggestion."

* * * *

She was packed. All of her blue clothes were in a special bag provided by Vashtara, which would be stored in a locker on Melchiza Station. The claim-ticket was sealed safely in the innermost pocket of her travel-case; her school book was asleep and tucked into a protected sleeve.

Melchiza-cash – thin rectangles of blue plaslin woven with data-thread, the denomination of each bill stamped in white – she had in several places. The mandated three-days-eating-money was in the inside pocket of the new red jacket Kamele had bought her when she realized that Theo's jacket and all her thickest sweaters were blue. The rest of her Melchiza money, her cred from home, and the mem-stick with Win Ton's letter on it, she had in a flat pouch that hung around her neck by an unbreakable cord. She'd bought the pouches during the same shopping trip that had produced the red jacket – one for her and one for Kamele.